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AMA, ACP, others urge CMS to reconsider interoperability measurements for EHRs
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The AMA, along with 36 other medical societies, is petitioning CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for changes to how it measures interoperability of electronic health records.
According to an AMA press release, the coalition of associations delivered a letter to Andrew Slavitt, acting administrator to CMS, and Karen DeSalvo, the national coordinator for ONC, in response to the agencies' requests for information on assessing interoperability for the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).
They explained that metrics that focus on interoperability and care coordination goals, rather than sheer quantity, would better serve patients and practices.
"These measures are a poor metric for interoperability, being too focused on the quantity of information moved and not the relevance of these exchanges or the underlying business case for transmitting data," the societies wrote in the letter.
"The lack of interoperability is one of the major reasons why the promise of electronic health records has not been fulfilled," Steven J. Stack, MD, AMA President, said in the release. "Vendors have been incentivized to meet the flawed benchmarks under the Meaningful Use program. We need to replace those benchmarks with ones that focus on better coordinated care. MACRA offers that opportunity, and we need to take advantage of it."
The organizations urged CMS to focus on the "usefulness, timeliness, correctness, and completeness of data, as well as the ease and cost of information access," instead of simply exchanging static documents, which is what most health IT vendors provide and satisfies Meaningful Use, but is "little more than digital faxing."
"The ultimate goal of using health IT should be to enhance the overall care and wellness of patients," the organizations concluded in the letter. "We are committed to working with CMS and ONC to improve the underlying data captured within the EHR and other health IT, including registries. In doing so, however, we strongly believe that moving forward with measuring interoperability in its current form, without changing the objectives themselves, will undermine advances in health care and will hinder a successful implementation of MACRA."
The full list of medical organizations that signed on to the letter:
American Medical Association
AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine
American Academy of Dermatology Association
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Academy of Neurology
American Academy of Ophthalmology
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
American Association of Neurological Surgeons
American College of Cardiology
American College of Emergency Physicians
American College of Mohs Surgery
American College of Osteopathic Internists
American College of Physicians
American College of Radiology
American College of Rheumatology
American College of Surgeons
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American Gastroenterological Association
American Medical Group Association
American Society for Clinical Pathology
American Society for Radiation Oncology
American Society of Anesthesiologists
American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery
American Society of Clinical Oncology
American Society of Plastic Surgeons
American Society of Retina Specialists
American Urological Association
College of American Pathologists
Congress of Neurological Surgeons
Heart Rhythm Society
Infectious Diseases Society of America
Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions
Society for Vascular Surgery
Society of Hospital Medicine