HealtHIE Nevada Fully Prepared for ONC Interoperability Rule

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Over the past couple of weeks, the ONC Interoperability Rule has dominated the health IT media landscape, and many industry players and associations have offered a wide-range of commentary.

As we recently highlighted, the new rules are the most extensive healthcare data-sharing policies yet implemented by the federal government, and aims to hold public and private entities accountable for enabling easy electronic access to health information.

The big question is how will the new interoperability rule impact HIEs?

According to Michael Gagnon, the Executive Director for HealtHIE Nevada, his HIE is well ahead and prepared to hit the future deadlines. He also believes that this is one of the most important pieces of health IT legislation since the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program.

“I think it helps correct some of the things that were perhaps not as meaningful in Meaningful Use as there could have been,” said Gagnon in this EHR Intelligence article. “Congress viewed the Cures Act as a way to focus on several things, but one of them is to make health data more interoperable, not just for patients but also for providers, payers, and effectively the whole healthcare ecosystem.”

“As a health information exchange, it's really a very welcoming new law,” added Gagnon. “The other side of it is we'll have some work to do to comply with that. We've got six months to get some things functional, but it also is a call to action for some of the providers, payers, and others in Nevada that have yet to step in and fully participate.”

He also discussed how HIEs need to play the role of the patient’s advocate or the patient’s service, thus eliminating the patient privacy risk.

“You come to us [the HIE], and we ensure that the data gets exposed to a particular app, but under conditions where it's still protected as a business associate,” he explains. “I would create agreements with those organizations to make sure that patient data doesn't become freely available to everybody. It becomes used for the purpose it was intended for the patient's needs.”

HealtHIE Nevada is a RosettaHealth partner, and Gagnon discussed the interoperability rule in our recent podcast interview, where he was joined by Phil Beckett, CEO of HASA, and Buff Colchagoff, CEO of RosettaHealth.

Be sure to catch up on all of our health data exchange-related content below.

To learn more about how RosettaHealth can assist with any health information challenges you might have, book a free consultation with one of our interoperability experts.

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