MDS Alert

New programs streamline regulations while providing patients with more control.

Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled its new program MyHealthEData, allowing patients more control over their protected health data. In addition to promoting interoperability and allowing easier access to health information with revisions of old programs, decreased reporting burdens, and quality-backed initiatives that support value, the agency also wants providers to note that interdepartmental cooperation is also part of Patients Over Paperwork, too.

"All departments in the federal government are working together to reach the true potential of health information technology and make sure that healthcare data follows patients," stated the March issue of the Patients Over Paperwork Newsletter. "Reaching interoperability, and with it giving all Americans and their providers access to health data, will empower patients and reduce waste, fraud and abuse."

Coordinated efforts with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to improve EHRs is one bright spot. Two other programsinitiated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) aim to encourage patients to share their data for science and study.

"The NIH is working on many projects, including Sync for Science and All of Us, which let patients give their health data to research," CMS noted in the newsletter. "As data moves to a universal digital format, it'll be easier for patients to participate in these studies."

Read the March 2018 issue of the Patients Over Paperwork Newsletter at: www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Outreach/Partnerships/Downloads/MarchPoPNewsletter032618.pdf.