On January 13, the HIT Policy Committee held its meeting in Washington, DC. During the meeting, Tony Trenkle, the CMS member of the HIT Policy Committee, and Farzad Mostashari of ONC gave an overview of the NPRM for the EHR Incentive Programs for Medicare and Medicaid on Meaningful Use, reviewing the document’s definitions of meaningful use and hospital based eligible professionals, and reminding attendants that the comment period ends March 15th.  The Vice Chair of the Policy Committee, Paul Tang, reviewed the Meaningful Use Workgroup discussion on the meaningful use rule, acknowledging some components of meaningful use are outside provider control and raising issues surrounding exclusion of hospital based physicians, measure denominators and computerized physician order entry. ONC staff Jodi Daniel, Doug Fridsma, and Farzad Mostashari gave an overview of the EHR Standards, Implementation Specifications, and Certification Criteria IFR.  They reviewed the initial standards’ four categories — content exchange standards, vocabulary standards, transport standards, and privacy/security standards. The NHIN Work Group presented recommendations to enhance the NHIN to help providers meet the requirements for qualifying as meaningful users of health IT. To wrap up, leaders of the Strategic Planning Workgroup discussed the HIT Strategic Framework and how the draft principals and objectives of the four themes – meaningful use of health IT, policy/technical infrastructure, privacy/security, and creating a learning health system through effective use of health IT – will continue to shape the Framework as it grows and develops. Further recommendations for the plan will be presented by the Workgroup in the next few months, and the updated Strategic Plan is expected to be released by October 2010. Throughout the meeting, Dr. David Blumenthal conveyed a sense of urgency in moving forward. “Given the timeframes for meaningful use, if there are new investments, new policies or aspirations we have to verbalize and communicate, we have no time to lose,” Dr. Blumenthal said. The agenda and the presentation materials from the January HIT Policy Committee Meeting are available on the HIT Policy Committee Web page.

Tags: Meeting Summary

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