PCRC Submits Letter to HHS Regarding Information Blocking by Electronic Health Record Vendors

On February 8, 2018, the Physician Clinical Registry Coalition submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expressing our ongoing concerns about information blocking by electronic health record (“EHR”) vendors.

The Coalition strongly advocated for the information blocking language included within the 21st Century Cures Act to prevent EHR vendors from blocking the transmission of clinical outcomes data to third parties, such as clinical data registries. The Cures Act prohibits EHR vendors from interfering with, preventing, or materially discouraging the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information, and grants the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) the authority to investigate and impose penalties upon an EHR vendor that engages in such information blocking. The ability of clinical data registries to access patient information from EHR vendors
is crucial for such registries to achieve their missions of improving quality of care.

Click here to read the full letter.

The Coalition is a group of 25 medical societies and other physician-led organizations that sponsor clinical data registries that collect identifiable patient information for quality improvement and patient safety purposes to help participating providers monitor clinical outcomes among their patients. We are committed to advocating for policies that enable the development of clinical data registries and enhance their ability to improve quality of care through the analysis and reporting of these outcomes.


Common Rule Final Rule Delayed to July 19, 2018

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an interim final rule delaying the effective date of the Common Rule final rule to July 19, 2018.  The agencies are working on issuing a proposed rule to further delay the final rule.  This interim final rule does not delay the compliance date for the cooperative research provision, which remains January 20, 2020. The interim final rule can be found here.