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ONC – the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has published its final rules for the 21st Century Cures Act in the Federal Register all 1244 pages. The Cures Act impacts patients with secure interoperability with the ONC Health IT Certification Program for healthcare application development and the elimination of patient information blocking rules in EMR/EHR’s.
The patient’s well-being is at the heart of this Final Rule. It impacts the patient, the providers and the application developers. Hospitals and their business partners benefit from the freedom and flexibility to allow patients to gain access to their healthcare information. Application developers benefit because there is now a program that will certify they follow industry standards for security and functionality.
This is the first of three segments. First, benefits to patients. Second, benefits to providers. Third, benefits to healthcare application development.
Focusing on the patient first. The Cures Act ensures that the patient owns their healthcare record and the data must be accurate, available and shareable. ONC’s Cures Act outlines useable technology already used by the financial industry and online sales transactions that has a proven history of keeping information safe, secure and accessible.
Today, more than ever, patients need transparent access to their healthcare information. Allowing patient information to be reviewed and validated by the patient will improve patient safety and decrease deaths and disabilities due to misinformation contained in EMR/EHR’s.
The Cures Act also creates a competitive environment for patients to receive the best care based on a variety of choices. This will create a vibrant application market. The Cures Act marketplace should provide better treatment plans based on complete, consolidated, and accurate patient case records. Imagine what that means to transparent price initiatives and treatment outcomes; the patient benefits.
Patient safety improves as providers take responsibility to ensure medical records are correct before they are shared. This will take time. Expect to see initial applications available early 2021 that follow the new rules, and have been tested in a proof of concept to ensure security.
The Final Rule Cures Act is a balance of benefits for all involved. This is a forward-looking technology outline that benefits patients the most.
