Susan Turney, Marshfield Clinic: “Just look at the number of patients using wearable devices or sharing information remotely with their physician offices…it’s important not just to get the info to the team but also important that they can analyze the information and report it back to the patient in a way that is impactful or helps their outcome. Probably the biggest barrier to [health technology] evolving further is the payment model…if we can have the payment model catch up with the delivery model we will be in a much better place… eHI has a huge voice in Washington. We are a small organization, but the representation from the stakeholders across industry has really helped us to think about what we are here for-- which is to serve the patient.”

Sam Ho, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, United Healthcare on policy  “There should be much more active collaboration between government policymakers and the private sector to remove the onerous and unnecessary policies, and promote policies that would let innovation and private sector solutions flourish…"

The mission of the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) is to enable a new era of medicine through research, technology, and policies that empower patients, researchers, and providers to work together toward the development of individualized care. Building from the existing PMI Privacy and Trust Principles, this document offers security policy principles and a framework to guide decision-making by organizations conducting or participating in precision medicine activities. Recognizing that there is no “one size fits all” approach to managing data security, this document provides a broad framework for protecting participants’ data and resources in an appropriate and ethical manner that can be tailored to meet organization-specific requirements.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate HELP Committee have engaged in a public, nonpartisan conversation with patients, researchers, innovators, and health care providers about what steps can be taken to expedite the discovery, development, and delivery of new treatments and cures and maintain America’s global status as the leader in biomedical innovation. The 21st Century Cures Act (“Cures”) is the product of that conversation.

Blog: Mark Segal, GE Healthcare - In Part 1 of this post, I provided an overview of the new Medicare Quality Payment Program (QPP) proposed in response to the 2015 Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), which sets out a path to value-based Medicare physician payment. The CMS proposed rule implementing MACRA was released April 27; comments are due June 27. In Part 2, I summarize healthcare IT (HIT) implications of the QPP and provide my initial observation on the proposed rule.

Blog: Mark Segal, GE Healthcare - I recently returned from GE Healthcare Digital’s major customer meeting, Centricity LIVE. While at this meeting, which provided many opportunities to speak with customers about their priorities, I presented on the new CMS Quality Payment Program (QPP) called for by the 2015 Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), which sets out a path to value-based Medicare physician payment.

With eHealth Initiative’s unique position as a neutral entity that brings together representatives across the entire healthcare continuum, the 2020 Roadmap was born with the intention to harmonize the new technologies and models of care in a way that brings about meaningful change that improves population health, increases patient-consumer experiences and lowers costs. eHI members share a unique vision to transform care delivery with patient-centric care by 2020 in 3 key areas: Interoperability, Data Access and Use, and Clinical and Business Motivators.

Christopher Ross, CIO, Mayo Clinic: “Hindsight is 20/20 , but I would make the argument that meaningful use incentives that got electronic systems into practices DID a lot of good…but especially as we moved into stage 2 and we are moving into stage 3, the requirements have become so prescriptive… as opposed to measuring outcomes and results from the use of technology…I think we can fix that, we shouldn’t lose hope, but we do need to move to some new kinds of models around how technology is incentivized in practices… part of it should match up against the payment for value kinds of approaches…"