CMS director outlines plans to improve organization's health care delivery system.
+ Technology/Innovation
Jamie Barrand | Jan 9, 2016

CMS director outlines plans to improve organization's health care delivery system

Kate Goodrich, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) Center for Clinical Standards & Quality, took to the CMS blog recently to discuss plans to improve the organization's health care delivery system.

Her goal is to recreate the system into something "better, smarter and healthier -- a system that delivers improved care, spends health care dollars more wisely and supports healthier communities," Goodrich said. 

Goodrich said one of the main components of the improved system would be health information technology (IT) and electronic health records (EHR).

"Health IT can also support electronic clinical quality measurement, which allows for more timely access to richer clinical data sources, more rapid feedback for quality improvement and reduced reporting burden for providers," she said. "CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) are committed to ensuring health IT systems can support accurate, reliable and robust reporting of quality measures."

To that end, CMS and ONC recently issued a joint Request for Information (RFI), titled "Certification frequency and requirements for the reporting of quality measures under CMS programs."

The RFI can be accessed in its entirety at www.federalregister.gov.

"The RFI provides CMS and ONC with an opportunity to assess policy options that could improve the effectiveness of the certification of health IT and specifically the certification and testing of EHR products used for the reporting of quality measures," Goodrich said. "We aim to streamline and reduce provider, hospital and health IT developer burden."

Feedback from those who use Medicare and Medicaid will be vital as improvement measures continue.

"We are working diligently to improve the means for information exchange and electronic data sharing across and among providers and health systems, increase opportunities for stakeholders to provide feedback and enhance mechanisms for the capturing of clinical information in EHRs, registries and other systems to assist with quality reporting and care coordination," Goodrich said.

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