CHIME Urges ONC to Balance Privacy/Access

While its members recognize the need for patient confidentiality and privacy protections, those concerns must be balanced with the need to exchange health information when necessary, according to CHIME’s recent comment letter on the proposed Federal Health IT Strategic Plan.

Additionally, “ONC needs to further define how consent management should be handled, and it must address the responsibility of patients, physicians, hospitals and insurers on how consent will be stored and transmitted through health information exchanges,” the comments continued.

CHIME stated it supports ONC’s approach in quantifying hospital and physician performance in achieving meaningful use objectives, but reiterated its request that Stage 2 Meaningful Use Objectives not be implemented before 30 percent of eligible hospitals and eligible professionals have achieved Stage 1 objectives.

“We believe that this approach would strike the right balance between the desire to push EHR adoption and MU as quickly as possible and the recognition that unreasonable expectations could end up discouraging EHR adoption if providers conclude that it will be essentially impossible for them to qualify for incentives.”

To read CHIME’s full comments, please go to: http://cio-chime.org/advocacy/CHIME_ONC_StrategicPlanCommentsLettertoMostashariApril2011.pdf

Or view them on ONC’s Health IT Buzz Blog, visit: http://www.healthit.gov/buzz-blog/from-the-onc-desk/hit-strat-plan/#comment-24171