“Federal public health administrators are emphasizing interoperability as government agencies continue to implement electronic health records (EHRs) across federal public health agencies.”
“A litany of officials from government organizations including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense joined a panel discussion Thursday talking about the health IT goals between federal organizations and the ongoing effort to implement EHRs into their daily business processes.”
“EHRs are digital copies of patient health records that turn a patient’s medical history into a single, shareable file to reduce the administrative and cost burdens and optimize clinicians’ ability to deliver positive health care outcomes…”
“This standardization will be important for collaboration between public health agencies, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and Defense, which are working to develop a common EHR platform to enable a seamless transfer of care.”
“Alexandra Mugge, the deputy chief health informatics officer at CMS, said that providing a common application interface will remove barriers to sharing and collecting patient health information.”
“’We all have to coordinate to ensure that we get to better usability, to ensure that our requirements aren’t conflicting with one another,’ Mugge said. ‘The main role of the EHR should be streamlining patient care…'”
“In addition to the centralization of EHR interoperability, Mugge added that other priorities related to EHR modernization include adjusting the health plan prior authorization process within APIs, linking EHRs to health plan payers in real time, and integrating APIs in other CMS programs…” Read the full article here.
Source: Public Health Admins Are Prioritizing Interoperability with EHR Modernization – By Alexandra Kelley, November 19, 2021. Nextgov.
