Healthcare Information “Unblocking” is Here. Now What?

Federal rules have a way of making life challenging for healthcare IT executives. Often, new regulations saddle them with responsibilities over which they may have only partial influence.

On April 5, CIOs began to take ownership of their piece of interoperability. It’s something that will require industrywide compliance and cooperation to reach the benefits that the regulations envision.

A few weeks ago, rules from the 21st Century Cures Act affecting information blocking went into effect. This culmination of years of efforts by federal agencies to encourage broader information sharing among healthcare industry participants. With the new rules, the floor of what constitutes compliance has been delineated.

The law impacts healthcare providers, health IT developers of certified health IT, health information networks, and health information exchanges. The Cures Act defines information blocking and establishes penalties for entities that interfere with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information (EHI).

The industry gets 18 months to adjust to the change, with EHI being defined as the data elements represented in the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI Version 1). “This initial 18-month period and limited scope give the regulated community time to…