HIMSS Releases its Top Health IT Policy Priorities to Congress

Sept. 11, 2015
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has listed interoperability, cybersecurity, and telehealth as its three biggest policy priorities for Congress to act on this year.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has listed interoperability, cybersecurity, and telehealth as its three biggest policy priorities for Congress to act on this year.

Under the guidance of the Public Policy Committee, HIMSS staff works closely with key congressional decision-makers, committees, and caucuses to advance improvements in healthcare through the use of IT and management systems. As it does every year, HIMSS releases a list of “Congressional asks” to policymakers. In this year’s list includes:

  • Support robust interoperability and health information exchange (HIE): Congress should: direct HHS to review and amend the ONC Health IT Certification Program to include rigorous interoperability testing (or leverage private sector-led testing programs) to ensure consistent implementation of HIE standards and specifications in certified EHR products; remove the Congressional prohibition (levied on HHS annually since 1999) on the use of federal funds for the development of a unique patient identifier standard; direct HHS to study a nationwide patient matching strategy; direct all federally-funded national and state government agencies to have the functionality to exchange data with healthcare institutions through means of standard language interfaces, e-data exchange, and health information exchanges.
  • Support healthcare’s efforts to combat cyber threats: Congress should: direct HHS to identify, through a collaborative process with the community stakeholders, academics, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a single, voluntary, national health-specific IT data security framework; and create a single information sharing pipeline of actionable cyber threat intelligence from the government to the private sector in (near) real time, through a no-cost mechanism.
  • Expand access to telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries: Congress should: amend the allowable originating sites of care beyond those currently stipulated by CMS to include interactions with patients from wherever the patient is located, including the home, where cost-effective and clinically-appropriate; eliminate the geographic restrictions on telehealth; allow expanded use of “store and forward capability” to aid long-term passive monitoring of chronic diseases; expand modalities beyond live (real-time) voice and video to active monitoring between clinicians, patients and care providers; update Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) and Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) to cover in-home monitoring or clinician/patient non-centralized exchanges, including shared decision making; encourage nationwide efforts to harmonize federal and state efforts to address the challenges of licensing clinicians to serve patients across traditional state boundaries.

Sponsored Recommendations

Ask the Expert: Is Your Patients' Understanding Putting You at Risk?

Effective health literacy in healthcare is essential for ensuring informed consent, reducing medical malpractice risks, and enhancing patient-provider communication. Unfortunately...

Beyond the Silos: Transforming Coordinated Care Across Healthcare Systems

Coordinated healthcare is vital to delivering a high-quality patient experience, yet it has been difficult to systematize across all healthcare settings. Although it has largely...

The Healthcare Provider's Guide to Accelerating Clinician Onboarding

Improve clinician satisfaction and productivity to enhance patient care

ASK THE EXPERT: ServiceNow’s Erin Smithouser on what C-suite healthcare executives need to know about artificial intelligence

Generative artificial intelligence, also known as GenAI, learns from vast amounts of existing data and large language models to help healthcare organizations improve hospital ...

According to an Oct. 10 press release, a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) finds that vaccines against 24 pathogens could reduce the number of antibiotics needed by 22% or 2.5 billion defined daily doses globally every year, supporting worldwide efforts to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR). While some of these vaccines are already available but underused, others would need to be developed and brought to the market as soon as possible. AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to antimicrobial medicines, making people sicker and increasing the risk of illness, death and the spread of infections that are difficult to treat. AMR is driven largely by the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials, yet, at the same time, many people around the world do not have access to essential antimicrobials. Each year, nearly 5 million deaths are associated with AMR globally. Vaccines are an essential part of the response to reduce AMR as they prevent infections, reduce the use and overuse of antimicrobials, and slow the emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens. The new report expands on a WHO study published in BMJ Global Health last year. It estimates that vaccines already in use against pneumococcus pneumonia, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib, a bacteria causing pneumonia and meningitis) and typhoid could avert up to 106 000 of the deaths associated with AMR each year. An additional 543 000 deaths associated with AMR could be averted annually when new vaccines for tuberculosis (TB) and Klebsiella pneumoniae, are developed and rolled out globally. While new TB vaccines are in clinical trials, one against Klebsiella pneumoniae is in early stage of development.
dreamstime_xxl_210174616_1