The initiative, in an 23-page letter (PDF) dated June 26 but released along with a prepared news statement on Tuesday, took issue with much of the direction of a formal request for information issued May 15 by HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
That request included 66 specific questions that ONC wanted answered about who should participate in the proposed network as well as who would decide who can join and under what rules. The ONC proposed creating a category of nationwide health information network validated entities, or NVEs, for eligible participants, and conditions for trusted exchange, or CTEs, as criteria for eligibility.
"ONC's proposed regulations could potentially hamper, not enhance, the growth and development of the health information exchange sector," said Jennifer Covich Bordenick, eHI's CEO, in the release. "Therefore, we strongly recommend that ONC take a step back, seek more input from additional stakeholders, and develop a revised approach that better supports the acceleration of trusted data exchange."
The eHealth Initiative statement said that although it tracks more than 250 health information exchange initiatives nationwide, their "business models and sustainability are still evolving" and they "have not yet achieved the critical mass necessary to establish a regulatory approach" of the scale and nature of the ONC request.
Moreover, the eHealth Initiative release said, information-exchange barriers "are not addressed by the framework presented."
An approach to data privacy in the request for information also goes too far, according to the eHealth Initiative. It "sets a higher bar for the proposed NVEs, including health information exchange organizations, than for others involved in controlling sensitive health data," the organization's statement said.
The decade-old Washington-based eHealth Initiative counts among its members "clinicians, consumers, health plans, health information technology suppliers, hospitals and other providers, laboratories, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, pharmacies, public health agencies, quality improvement organizations, standards groups and health information exchanges," according to its website.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Joseph Conn
Quelle/Source: Modern Healthcare, 03.07.2012
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