Next Steps for the Implementation Workgroup

All HIT Standards Committee Workgroup meetings are now open to the public so you can listen to the debate as it happens.

Last week, the Implementation Workgroup discussed next steps to empower clinicians, patients, and communities in their quest for meaningful use of healthcare IT.

We discussed topics for public hearings of experts

1. Creation of a Health IT Implementation Starter Kit - How can we learn from best practices in Beacon communities, forward thinking practice groups, and early adopter HIEs?

2. Transmission - How do we solve the transmission problem of sending data securely from provider to provider, provider to payer or provider to population health data aggregator?

3. Engaging Patients and Families - How do we package data for patient engagement? What is included in a summary medical record or encounter summary? How do we transmit the package from providers to patients?

4. Quality measurement - how do we reduce the burden on practices of computing and submitting quality measures?

5. Vocabularies - how do we lessen the burden of ICD10 adoption, how do we provide a free, up to date starter set of controlled vocabularies such as a LOINC lab compendium, SNOMED-CT problem list, and others codesets needed to support meaningful use.

The Workgroup decided to begin with the Implementation Starter Kit and host severals panel in a day of public hearings.

a. Panel on Federal contributions (VA, DoD, ONC role)

b. Consortia – sharing data in a new ways, breaking down silos

c. Exemplars – lessons learned from the field, large and small organizations. What is their approach to meaningful use?

The hearing will be followed up by blog/structured dialog over course of 3-4 weeks.

The first hearing will be in early March after HIMSS.

I look forward to sharing best practices from the trenches. You can always count on my contribution of all BIDMC's experience and IT intellectual property.