AHA responds to CMS, ASTP request for information on health care IT environment

The AHA June 16 responded to a request for information on the health technology ecosystem from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The AHA made several recommendations to improve health IT standards and infrastructure, increase access to effective digital health tools and advance data availability to improve health outcomes.  

The recommendations include continued development of ASTP/ONC’s United States Core Data for Interoperability vocabulary standards, collaboration across agencies to address broader infrastructure challenges associated with health IT adoption, repealing excessive information blocking disincentives finalized last year, building additional infrastructure to support the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, and streamlining price transparency policies to remove complexity from the patient experience.