Washington Debrief: D.C. Abuzz with Mostashari Successor Rumors

o   Standard formatting of involved reports

o   Also post-implementation testing

o   Approaches to allow aggregation of safety issues at the national level, including federal support to enable this

·         FDA and other agencies need to take steps to strongly discourage vendors from engaging in practices that discourage or limit the free flow of safety-related information.

Industry leaders and members of CHIME cited lack of clear, mandatory standards as a barrier to interoperability during a panel discussion last week at the 2013 eHealth Summit in Baltimore, hosted by CMS.  CHIME President and CEO Russ Branzell declared that non-compulsory standards hinder interoperability between HIEs and that the absence of mandatory standards slows systems down.  “The level of exponential complexity that the average organization and CIO is trying to manage during this time of reform transition is truly impossible,” he said, adding that an extension to meaningful use in 2014 would allow providers to get the process right.  John Glaser, CEO of Health Services at Siemens Healthcare, agreed stating, “we’re still learning” in terms of accountable care and meaningful use, and now is the time to “hold the trigger.” 

CentraState Medical Center Vice President and CIO Indranil “Neal” Ganguly also urged the need to get prescriptive on standards.  “Providers are spinning their wheels trying to solve inconsistent standards through mapping and it is taking an inordinate amount of time and money, which does not exist,” he said, while describing the complexities, given the five HIEs in his state of New Jersey. “The lack of standards is causing us tremendous waste in terms of getting to true value proposition.”  

INOVA Health System CMIO Ryan Bosch, MD noted that a basic standard was needed around allergy lists. “Having variability across systems adds cost and complexity to exchanging health information,” he said. “[Mandatory standards] will catalyze some of our juvenile growth.”

In addition to interoperability, the day-long eHealth Summit included panels on administrative simplification; privacy and security; and health information exchange with speakers representing payers, providers, patients, and CMS program staff.