Amid virus crisis, officials announce health care tech rules
It did not go smoothly as reporters veered back to the global outbreak increasingly affecting
"The notion that we can't do our day jobs and work on this very serious issue (coronavirus) is absurd," said a frustrated Health and Human Services Secretary
Azar recapped administration actions to try to contain the spread of the virus in the
The long-awaited rules could take several years for consumers and patients to start seeing the practical effects. They are intended to get at one of the major problems with electronic health records: the systems of hospitals and doctors often don't 'talk' to each other, and patients struggle to get their medical information digitally transmitted, defaulting to CDs and faxed paper records.
The federal government invested more than
The regulations are highly complex. Hospitals and a consumer group objected, saying that patient privacy would be undermined.
One rule from the HHS agency that oversees health care technology would implement congressional requirements that hospitals and other health care entities put a stop to practices that can block the digital transfer of information. Some systems don't allow screen shots or video to be shared, for example.
The health care technology office rule also tries to address access problems at the patient's level. It requires hospitals and other health care service providers to allow access to records via software used by smartphone apps, such as the ones that already handle banking and credit card transactions. Patients could literally access their records via the smartphone in their back pocket.
A companion rule from the
CMS will also require hospitals to electronically notify a patient's outside doctors when that patient is admitted, discharged or transferred.
The hope is that easier access and authorized sharing of individuals' health care information will help prevent medical errors, cut down on duplicative tests, and help patients become smarter consumers of health care services.
But
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen also criticized the new rules, saying they fail to guarantee that sensitive information won't fall into the hands of third parties that could exploit it for profit.
CMS says it intends improve on health care privacy standards in the smart phone industry to provide consumers with a higher level of protection.
In addition to Azar, among the top administration officials joining to make the announcement were
The administration's plan had been to make the announcement at a global health technology conference sponsored by the
“Sorry we can't see you in
An earlier version of this story was corrected to show that the rule requiring patient information be available through smartphone apps came from the HHS technology office, not the
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