In what seems like almost a regular cadence now, the Office of the Inspector General and Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (“ASTP”) have announced a crackdown on information blocking nearly nine years after the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016. I say this is like a cadence because, like I told my … Continue reading Data Blocking Investigations Are Coming.
Information blocking is any practice that could interfere with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information (“EHI”) if done by a covered actor, which includes healthcare providers. This blog has discussed how 2016’s 21st Century Cures Act implemented a prohibition against information blocking, and HHS’s plans for its implementation. However, to-date healthcare providers … Continue reading Information Blocking Penalties for Doctors and Hospitals
This blog has discussed the 21st Century Cures Act’s (“Cures”) prohibition against information blocking before through a legal perspective. This post will talk about what the prohibition means for one of the key stakeholder groups that it is meant to help: healthcare technology innovators. The good news is that healthcare data is getting cheaper and … Continue reading Information Blocking and Interoperability for Innovators
Several weeks ago a law firm filed an information blocking complaint on behalf an individual alleging that a hospital, its electronic health records vendor, and a “records staffing firm,” had engaged in information blocking for refusing to produce EHR records in a text-based PDF format.[1] The context is important: the requestor is a former patient … Continue reading Is it Information Blocking? The Civil Discovery Edition
21st Century Cures prohibition against information blocking applies to certain actors: healthcare providers, health information networks and health information exchanges, and health IT developers. In this post we’ll take a look at what it means to be a health IT developer and become subjection to the prohibition. A health IT developer is any developer who … Continue reading 21st Century Cures Part 3: Who’s a Health IT Developer?
As noted in the first part of this series, 21st Century Cures prohibits any practice that could materially interfere with a patient’s (or their authorized representative’s) ability to access, exchange, or use their electronic health information without special effort – unless an exception applies. So just what is “electronic health information,” or “EHI”? This blog … Continue reading 21st Century Cures Part 2: Electronic Health Information
In my first article on 21st Century Cures rulemaking, of what is to be many posts and presentations, we are first going to talk about the need to take this rule seriously, and its inevitable enforcement. 21st Century Cures prohibits “information blocking,” which is any practice that could materially interfere with a patient’s (or their … Continue reading 21st Century Cures: Part 1
On January 15, 2020 the ONC published the 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan. This is the first post of a two-part series that will cover the plan from the perspective of (1) health IT developers, and (2) healthcare provider organizations. These strategic plans fit a couple of use cases for the federal government. They … Continue reading Federal Health IT Strategic Plan (2020-2025) Part 1: Health IT Developers, Information Blocking, & Interoperability
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