Consumer Rights Driven Data Access

By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick
Twitter: @drnic1
Host of Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist – #TheIncrementalist

The Bluebutton Innovator
Now on demand, I am talking to Mark Scrimshire (@eKiveMark) a fellow Walking Gallery member and Entrepreneur in Residence at NewWave and on assignment as Medicare Blue Button 2.0 Innovator at CMS where he is designing and implementing the new API to enable 53 million Medicare Beneficiaries to share their claims information with the applications, services and research programs they choose to trust.

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His work extends back to 2010 when the initial concept of the Blue Button was conceptualized but it took several years before this started to really take off with the concept of View, Download and Transmit. One of the key Incremental Steps to get this interoperability rolled out centered on changing the positioning of HIPAA from a barrier to sharing and portability to an enabler. Ironic when you consider that it stands for “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act”! Listen in to find out the details behind the change and a key incremental step to progress – changing the messaging.

Part of this changed messaging centers on the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and the clear guidance to direct consumers to have the right to access their data in electronic format. As promised in the broadcast here is the Rights to Access Memo they issued in September 2015 and something I carry with me to all my medical appointments.

He shares his view on how to move toward interoperability and his incremental step connected with the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR, pronounced “Fire”) set of Resources and removing complexity and simplifying the approach the is a recurring theme for Incremental Improvements.

Don’t let perfection stand in the way of progress

You can read more about the project in the FHIR Wiki he mentioned here. Listen in to hear Mark talk about the new project and how he is turning the oxymoron of Explanation of Benefits (EOB) which fails to provide insights to the people it is directed at and how the DaVinci project. The move from the old model of Fee for Service (FFS) to paying for outcomes is also driving a whole shift in data accessibility and utility and willingness to share which is exciting for our the consumer rights driven access movement.

Their Incremental steps to improvement include the huddle but listen in to hear what other incremental steps you may be missing that has added significantly to their team-based approach, coordination and success.

About the Show
For years Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, has served as a voice on the impact of new technologies on healthcare, earning a reputation as a leading authority on where the future of medicine is going. Combining powers of observation and real world experience, Dr. Nick has seen many predictions come true and makes the case that innovations in healthcare can be accomplished incrementally, not just by moonshot events. Tune in to hear Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist and his guests discuss what the future of healthcare looks like, how we will get there, and what it will take to improve healthcare for all.

This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.