By Karen B. DeSalvo & Steven Posnack – As a health care consumer, imagine if you were able to choose a software application to create a secure snapshot of your health information, like pictures that extend over the course of your lifetime.
Read More
By Karen B. DeSalvo & Matthew Swain – The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) issued its annual report to Congress on health IT progress. Developing this report provided us with an opportunity to reflect on our collective health IT journey and the significance of the past year for HHS and our federal and private partners.
By Andy Slavitt & Karen B. DeSalvo – The great promise of technology is to bring information to our fingertips, connect us to one another, improve our productivity, and create a platform for the next generation of innovations.
By Lucia Savage & Aja Brooks – Welcome to the fourth and final blog post in our series on how HIPAA supports interoperability. In the previous installments, we provided practical examples and illustrations that show how Health Care Operations Permitted Uses and Disclosures apply to covered entities.
By Steven Posnack – Every day, across the nation, all of us in the health IT community are collectively tackling interoperability challenges. At ONC, we are focused on providing you with the chance to inspire colleagues, share experiences, and describe lessons learned when it comes to interoperability.
By Lucia Savage & Aja Brooks – Welcome to the third blog post in our series. Blog #2 discussed how HIPAA supports interoperability, and discussed definitions of Treatment and Health Care Operations-functions for which HIPAA supports electronic exchange of health information. This blog post gives additional practical examples of exchange for Treatment and exchange for Health Care Operations. Let’s jump right in.
By Steven Posnack – The health IT landscape has changed considerably since the HITECH Act. The Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap is now front and center and we’re in a period of transition prompted by MACRA. We have also seen exciting and impactful industry work take shape like the development of HL7® FHIR® and the Argonaut Project.
By Lucia Savage & Aja Brooks – At ONC, we hear all of the time that HIPAA makes it difficult, if not impossible, to move electronic health data when and where it is needed for patient care and health. This is a misconception, but unfortunately one that is widespread.
By Lucia Savage & Aja Brooks – This post summarizes the new ONC fact sheets on HIPAA Permitted Uses and Disclosures for exchange (Treatment and Health Care Operations), developed in conjunction with the Office for Civil Rights.