Building the value-based healthcare system of the future depends on meeting primary care doctors' and other clinicians’ data needs, say two leading, outgoing federal health officials.
As they prepare to leave their jobs in the Obama administration, Andrew Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and Vindell Washington, national coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), wrote what will likely be their last post on the CMS blog.
After almost two years as head of CMS, Slavitt will soon be out of a job—President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Seema Verma, founder and CEO of consulting firm SVC Inc., to serve as administrator of the federal agency.
Washington will resign his post effective Friday when Trump is sworn in as the country’s new president.
Slavitt and Washington cite progress made over the last eight years: In 2015, more than 77% of office-based physicians reported using a certified electronic health record (EHR) while the percentage of those with any EHR has doubled since 2008. While tools are improving, they acknowledge some clinicians remain frustrated by the limited usability of technology and data.
The average physician practice now contracts with 12 different insurers, each with different requirements around quality measures, formats and submission methods, they write.
The vision for the future? “Clinicians collect data as part of the normal course and share it at the push of a button with any authorized party,” they write, outlining six elements to get there:
- Seamless interaction between point of care solutions and other entities, including through the use of standard application programming interfaces or APIs
- Growth of third-party entities that can meet provider data access and reporting needs
- Use of low-cost shared services necessary to aggregate and link data
- Greater data transparency and data consolidation
- Standardization of key patient data needed for quality measurement
- Alignment around how quality is measured and reported across payers