See revised section below on how to submit comments.

Speak up now and help ONC’s Health Information Technology Policy Committee (HITPC) as they begin to develop meaningful use stage 3 recommendations that target a collaborative model of care with shared responsibility and accountability, and build upon previous meaningful use objectives.

The HITPC has held a series of public hearings and listening sessions to hear testimony from a wide-range of stakeholders about their current experience with meaningful use and lessons learned. Health IT thought-leaders also discussed how meaningful use can continue to improve the health care system, including how meaningful use should support emerging models of care.

Similar input helped to inform many hours of public deliberations about the future of meaningful use before Stage 2 was published in August. While the committee appreciates and recognizes the challenges involved in setting up data exchanges, it has recommended that meaningful use stage 3 be the time to begin to transition from a setting-specific focus to a collaborative, patient and family centric approach.

The Request for Comment (RFC) [ PDF- 313KB ] for meaningful use stage 3 is broken into the following sections:

• Meaningful Use Objectives and Measures
• Quality Measures
• Privacy and Security

We want to acknowledge and thank the following workgroups for the tireless hours they have put into collecting these recommendations for comment: Meaningful Use, Information Exchange, Quality Measures, and the Privacy and Security Tiger Team.

All commenters are encouraged to provide opinions regarding feasibility, and more importantly, experiences with how something has been done in order to promote advancement, while also ensuring it is achievable.

How to Submit Comments

The comment period is now open. Each item that the HITPC is requesting comment on has been given an identification (ID) number in order to streamline the accumulation of comments. Please use this ID number when submitting comments. Because of staff and resource limitations, we are only accepting comments electronically at regulations.gov.  Click on the “Comment Now!” button and follow the “Submit a Comment” instructions.

Attachments should be in Microsoft Word or Excel, Word Perfect, or Adobe PDF. Please do not submit duplicative comments. The deadline for comments is 11:59 p.m. ET on January 14, 2013.

Analysis of Comments

Following the analysis of the comments received throughout the comment period, the HITPC intends to revisit these recommendations in its public meetings in the first quarter of 2013. It is important to note that the RFC represents the preliminary thinking of the HITPC and not necessarily HHS or its various agencies.