On the same day last week that CMS rolled out plans to ease the flow of health information, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT made two fairly significant announcements at an event in the Eisenhower building. 'The first was that we were going to continue our work on certification, and that this was going to include certification of APIs to improve interoperability,' Tom Keane says. 'The other thing I talked about is how we were going to enforce the information blocking.' Keane did not specify a timeline for when the agency would start certifying what are known as APIs, which are the means by which information is sent and received between applications. He also didn’t provide information about when or how that the ONC would start enforcing information blocking, the practice of preventing payers, patients, and providers from accessing electronic health information. The agency hasn't yet penalized companies that unreasonably limit access to health data.
In a social media landscape shaped by hashtags, algorithms, and viral posts, nurse leaders must decide: Will they let the narrative spiral, or can they adapt and join the conversation?
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