The patient is at the center of the 21st Century Cures Act in order to provide them more power in the delivery of health care, which includes access to medical information.
In 2016, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology passed federal legislation called the 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule that puts patients in charge of their health records, which is a key piece of Health and Human Services (HHS) work toward a value-based health care system. The ONC Final Rule enables the health care delivery system to deliver an “app economy” to providers and patients, physicians, hospitals, payers, and employers with innovation and choice.
Through the delivery of modern smartphone and software apps, patients and providers will see benefits in accessing electronic health information (EHI). Patients will have more convenient and easier options to gain on-demand access to their EHI whenever and wherever they need it. In addition, there will be the increasing ability for patients to choose apps that will assemble and read their records. The interoperability, information blocking, and patient access to data and electronic health record certification requirements outlined in the 21st Century Cures Act will go into effect in multiple phases and will impact our patients, health care providers and health IT software developers.
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Changes to Inpatient and Emergency Center settings will go live on March 21, 2021. With this, there will also be optimizations to Ambulatory areas, who went live with these changes in November 2020. Texas Children’s will release data via MyChart, and other patient portals, in order to make information more accessible and not require patients to go through the traditional medical record release process. Several other changes on the horizon include:
- Patient Access API – Beginning December 31, 2022, CMS-regulated payers (including Medicaid MCOs) are required to implement a secure, standards-based application programming interface (API) that allows patients to access their claims, encounter information and some clinical data.
- CMS Payer-to-Payer Data Exchange – This provision will require CMS-regulated payers to share certain clinical data with each other and other payers. This allows the patient to take their information with them as they move from payer to payer over time to help create a cumulative health record with their current payer.
- United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) standard expands – Starting in October 2022, under ONC’s rule, the definition of EHI will expand beyond the USCDI. The EHI definition will include the full HIPAA electronic designated data set.
To prepare, educate, and ensure compliance across the organization, a workgroup has been assembled to carefully review the regulation, review our policies, procedures and business practices, and develop a system wide communication plan to ensure our providers are compliant with this new federal regulation. All Texas Children’s team members are invited to learn more about this regulation and its implementation by visiting our SharePoint site, which provides details on what you need to know, including a recordings of prior Town Halls, a crash course, simulation center videos, handouts and much more.
Stay tuned for additional updates.