“The HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association has not yet formally submitted its comments on the proposed interoperability rules to the Office of National Coordinator for Health IT. But this week, the association posted on its blog that, while it supports the rules’ goals for patient access, it has deep concerns that the ‘tremendously broad reach of the proposed rule goes far beyond Congressional intent.'”
WHY IT MATTERS
“‘In particular, we have significant concerns regarding timelines, ambiguous language, disincentives for innovation, and definitions related to information blocking,’ said HIMSS EHR Association officials in the post, which previews comments the group says are ‘going through final rounds of review’ by its executive committee and seven workgroups and will be submitted soon to ONC.”
” Timeline challenges. The association says it polled its member companies – including Allscripts, Cerner, Epic, eClinicalWorks, Meditech and many others – to get a sense of the development resources that would be needed for vendors to comply with the voluminous proposed rules from ONC…”
“EHRA said it’s concerned that, ‘as written, the proposed rule would discourage innovation by imposing limitations on profit as well as compulsory licensing terms for new intellectual property, created through extensive investment in development’…”
“Since ONC this past month extended the comment period on its proposed rules to June 3, bowing to pressure from an array of industry groups that they’re ‘too important to not get right,’ many stakeholders have taken the extra time to fine-tune their lists of concerns.” Read the full article here.
Source: EHR vendors say ONC proposed rules are too broad, would stifle innovation – By Mike Miliard, May 30, 2019. Healthcare IT News.
