The Department of Health and Human Services on Nov. 28 issued a draft strategy that the agency said is “designed to help reduce administrative and regulatory burdens on clinicians” stemming from use of health information technologies, including electronic health records.
The agency is seeking comment on the draft strategy through Jan. 28, 2019.
The draft strategy, HHS said, aims to reduce the time and effort required to record health data in EHRs and meet regulatory reporting requirements, and improve the functionality and ease of use of EHRs. The strategy was led by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in partnership with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and was required by the 21st Century Cures Act.
“Usable, interoperable health IT was one of the first elements of the vision I laid out earlier this year for transforming our health system into one that pays for value,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar, in a statement.
“With the significant growth in EHRs comes frustration caused, in many cases, by regulatory and administrative requirements stacked on top of one another. Addressing the challenge of health IT burden and making EHRs useful for patients and providers, as the solutions in this draft report aim to do, will help pave the way for value-based transformation,” he said.
