AEGIS.net, Inc. (AEGIS) was asked to participate in the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Forum on Promoting Innovation; Protecting Patient Safety: Advancing Use of Technology in Health Care in Washington, DC. Mario Hyland, Senior Vice President at AEGIS was among other distinguished guests including but not limited to the National Coordinator for Health IT, Karen DeSalvo; Senator Bill Frist, MD, Co-Chair, Health Project and BPC Senior Fellow; Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN); John Hammergren, CEO of McKesson Corporation and Janet Marchibroda, Executive Director of the CEO Council on Health and Innovation at BPC.
This Forum was an effort to solidify the “Framework for Assuring Patient Safety in Health IT” which engaged more than 100 experts and stakeholders to develop a set of principles and recommendations for an oversight framework for health IT that protects patient safety, promotes innovation, yet is flexible enough to meet the needs of a rapidly changing health care system. This discussion is a continued response to the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) Health IT Report: Proposed Risk Based Regulatory Framework (the “FDASIA Report”). AEGIS provided industry insight into these meetings on Standards & Interoperability Testing in addition to the need for establishing a risk-based framework. Interoperability is in the forefront of all policy, roadmaps, regulations and industry guidance facing the adoption and implementation of electronic health record (EHR) systems, products and tools.
One of the most critical pieces that have been left out of all of these documented and discussed efforts is the importance of standards-based testing. But the BPC event showed positive signs of a change in the dialog. In attendance was Steven Posnack, Director, Office of Standards and Technology, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology who stated that his new buzzword for 2015 will be “Testing”. We look forward to that discussion advancing with ONC, BPC and other organization’s efforts in the coming months.