“…While CMS and ONC are helming different aspects of these grander steps for health data interoperability, CMS Deputy Chief Health Informatics Officer and Health and Human Services Senior Policy Advisor Alex Baker highlighted at the HIMSS conference Thursday some newer strides that ONC and CMS are taking together to meet these goals.
One of these strides is found in USCDI+, a service for ONC’s federal partners like CMS who have specific needs to establish, harmonize and advance the use of interoperable datasets that extend beyond USCDI. Baker said that USCDI+ will help agencies like CMS meet their agency-specific programmatic requirements. For CMS, this is especially useful for quality measurements.
“One of the initial things that we’re focusing on under this initiative is work with CMS around quality measurement and understanding what other data may be needed for quality measurement,” Baker said.
ONC and CMS are also working together to improve electronic prior authorization and reduce burden that respectively comes with current prior authorization processes. ONC’s Health IT Advisory Committee released a request for information Jan. 24 to aid CMS with this effort, with the aim to address questions about what electronic prior authorization capabilities should be addressed in the ONC Health IT Certification Program and what implementation specifications ONC should consider in its certification program to support prior authorization…”
“CMS is also looking to support building out the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) that ONC stood up in January. Mugge said that CMS and ONC are working together to figure out how the national network of health information exchanges can support CMS’s mission…” Read the full article here.
Source: Outlining CMS, ONC Next Steps to Advance Health Data Interoperability – By Melissa Harris, March 17, 2022. GovCIO.
