21st Century Cures Act Should Spur Interoperability
Statement by CHIME President and CEO Russell Branzell on enactment of the 21st Century Cures Act:
The 21st Century Cures Act will help pave the way to greater interoperability and improve electronic health information exchange. The law reflects the growing need to develop a standards-based information exchange infrastructure. CHIME has been at the forefront of advocating for greater attention to standards development and for improving interoperability.
Significantly, the law also contains several CHIME-supported provisions that address the critical issues of accurately identifying patients and matching them to their health records. The absence of national solutions for patient identification and patient matching not only pose serious risks to patient safety, but also lead resources being wasted on cleaning up duplicative medical records, as well as creating other inefficiencies. Through our National Patient ID Challenge, CHIME has been leading the charge for finding a solution that will ensure accurate patient identification. While that $1 million-challenge continues, and we hope to identify a winner in 2017, we welcome the opportunities laid out in the 21stCentury Cures Act that could allow us to collaborate with our federal partners on this important patient safety issue.
CHIME also supported language in the law that will create a more transparent process for certifying electronic health record systems; a process that will include real-world testing for interoperability. This will add a layer of confidence that health IT systems are capable of supporting the transition to a more integrated and value-based delivery system.
About CHIME
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 2,100 CIO members and over 150 healthcare IT vendors and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit www.chimecentral.org.