National Governors Association posts roadmap for health data interoperability
The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices Health Division published a roadmap to help states boost information flow between providers.
Titled “Getting the Right Information to the Right Health Care Providers at the Right Time: A Road Map for States to Improve Health Information Flow Between Providers,” the roadmap is meant to help improve the exchange of critical health data.
The association worked with state officials, interoperability experts, including the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, to create the roadmap.
Road map authors pointed out that the country has experienced significant advancements in medical diagnostics and treatments for complex health problems in recent years. Healthcare, however, still lags other sectors of the economy in the exchange of information to improve efficiency.
The new roadmap offers states strategies to address legal barriers, such as restrictive laws, misinterpretation and fear of liability: aligning state privacy laws with HIPAA, build standardized consent forms, create meaningful economic interests that incentivize health information exchange, set a vision and then hold people accountable to it.
National Governors Association said the overarching goal of the roadmap is to “activate governors and their senior state leaders to drive forward policies that support the seamless flow of clinical patient healthcare information between providers while protecting patient privacy, as a step toward nationwide interoperability.”
Twitter: @Bernie_HITN
Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com
