This week, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal asked the Health IT Standards Committee to begin developing standards for electronically enrolling people in health programs included under the federal health care reform law, Government Health IT reports.
The reform law directs federal officials to streamline federal and state enrollment systems for people applying for government-run health insurance benefits. Officials say they will face challenges in standardizing the eligibility data to align with federal and state programs that use different data systems.
John Halamka, co-chair of the Standards Committee, said standardizing the enrollment systems would make it possible to integrate eligibility data related to:
- Medical information;
- Employment history;
- Benefit enrollment; and
- Tax records.
Halamka said the Standards Committee also could develop processes for patient identity matching and electronic eligibility verification.
The health reform law gives HHS 180 days to create the standards. Blumenthal said ONC already has begun to collaborate on enrollment standardization with other HHS agencies, the Internal Revenue Service and the departments of Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 4/29).
Vocabulary Recommendations
Also during the meeting, the Standards Committee sent ONC two recommendations for relating medical vocabularies to the "meaningful use" of electronic health records, Health Data Management reports. Health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of EHRs can qualify for incentive payments under the federal economic stimulus package.
In its first recommendation, the committee calls for a single federal office or agency to take responsibility for ensuring the creation, maintenance, delivery and accessibility of all vocabulary related to meaningful use.
The second recommendation calls for the creation of an infrastructure to support the development, maintenance and dissemination of meaningful use vocabularies (Goedert, Health Data Management, 4/29).