In a speech that centered on the changes the healthcare industry faces through MACRA’s Quality Payment Program, Andy Slavitt emphasized the need for health IT vendors to do more.
In his comments at the American Medical Association’s Annual Meeting on Monday, the acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said that one of the keys to fixing a very fragmented healthcare system is making “healthcare technology a tool, not an industry.”
He also said that it’s time to “ask a lot more” of vendors, especially when it comes to interoperability. The industry, he said, must put “more pressure on technology vendors and less burden on physicians, so physicians can do simple things like track referrals when a patient sees another specialist or visits a hospital.”
Meaningful Use also was mentioned in his speech, with Slavitt acknowledging that the burden should not fall on the shoulders of the user, but on the technology.
“Today’s data silos are more a function of business practices than technology capability and we cannot tolerate it any longer,” he said.
“The first year of [the Quality Payment Program] will hit bumps as new policies run into the realities of everyday medicine,” Slavitt said. “Systems will need to adapt to your needs. Long-time frustration won’t disappear right away. I’m asking for your ongoing collaboration over the next several years, so that we can implement, receive feedback, iterate and progress.”