February 2022 Posts

Information Blocking Claims: By the Numbers

Rachel Nelson | February 28, 2022

The 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act), signed into law by President Obama in 2016, directed ONC to implement a standardized process for the public to report claims of possible information blocking. The information blocking claims reporting process welcomes claims of possible information blocking from anyone who believes they may have experienced or observed information blocking. Any information received by ONC in connection with a claim or suggestion of possible information blocking and that could reasonably be expected to facilitate identification of the source of the information (claimant) is protected from disclosure under the Cures Act.

Read Full Post.

DYK: There’s a Conformance Review Process for Certified Health IT

Pablo Ardaya | February 8, 2022

The use of certified health IT in clinical settings is complicated. We know that certification testing in the lab is different from using certified health IT in the real world, somewhat akin to the difference between “efficacy” and “effectiveness” in drug development. This is why the ONC Health IT Certification Program (Certification Program) compels participating developers to ensure that their certified health IT conforms to the full range of requirements during and after lab-based testing. When suspected issues arise with certified health IT – sometimes called “non-conformities” – the Certification Program’s conformance review process helps provide a path to resolve them.

Read Full Post.

Shining a Light on FHIR Implementation: Progress Toward Publishing FHIR Endpoints

Wes Barker | February 1, 2022

Using APIs “without Special Effort”

The ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule (Cures Rule) supports patients’ and providers’ access to electronic health information (EHI) through Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) application programming interfaces (APIs). FHIR is ready for prime-time and the Cures Rule requires certain developers of certified health IT to provide a certified, FHIR API to their customer base by December 31, 2022.

Read Full Post.