Health Sector Publishes Guide for Coordinating Privacy and Security Partnerships

February, 2024 - The Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC) Cybersecurity Working Group recently published a guide for health providers and companies to coordinate privacy and cybersecurity functions for improved overall compliance and operational efficiencies and effectiveness.

Here is the link to the guide -  https://healthsectorcouncil.org/privacy-security-coordination/. 

A special shout out to a few local contributors that helped develop this guide - Karen Habercross  at The University of Chicago Medicine & Biological Sciences and Frank Ruelas at CommonSpirit Health. Thank you!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Greater Illinois Chapter of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Recognizes:

Illinois Representative Bill Foster

Naperville— May 10, 5:00 PM CST — GIC HIMSS will honor Illinois Representative Bill Foster for his efforts to improve the quality and safety of healthcare throughout the United States. Congressman Foster was the lead sponsor of an amendment that would improve the process of matching patients to their healthcare data. This change would save thousands of lives each year by preventing medical errors that increase the cost of healthcare delivery. “HIMSS believes that the ‘partner’ patient gaining access to their longitudinal record is essential to achieving better care, and our members have long advocated for advancing a nationwide patient matching strategy,” said Tom Leary, HIMSS Senior Vice President for Government Relations. “We join with our Greater Illinois Chapter to celebrate the great work Representative Foster has accomplished on patient identification, and look forward to working with him and his staff to remove barriers that impede the acceleration of patient safety and improved health outcomes!”

 

HIMSS is a founding member of Patient ID Now and supports this legislative effort. About Patient ID Now Patient ID Now is a coalition of healthcare organizations representing a wide range of healthcare stakeholders committed to advancing through legislation and regulations a nationwide strategy to address patient identification. Founding members include HIMSS, the American College of Surgeons, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), and Intermountain Healthcare and Premier Healthcare Alliance. About GICHIMSS GIC HIMSS is a diverse group of experienced professionals supporting the transformation of healthcare through information and technology. Our members work at hospitals, corporate health systems, consulting firms, vendor organizations, universities, and a wide variety of other organizations. Drawing from both technical and clinical fields, our membership ranges from C-level executives to students. As a mission driven non-profit, GIC HIMSS strives to provide opportunities for education, professional development and networking. For more information, press only:  Advocacy@gichimss.org

 

Telehealth HIMSS Advocacy

HIMSS joined with 340 organizations to sign a letter urging Congressional leaders to make telehealth flexibilities created during the COVID-19 pandemic permanent. Those signing this multi-stakeholder letter include national and regional organizations representing a full range of healthcare stakeholders and all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Congress quickly waived statutory barriers to allow for expanded access to telehealth at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing federal agencies with the flexibility to allow healthcare providers to deliver care virtually. If Congress does not act before the COVID-19 public health emergency expires, current flexibilities will immediately disappear. Therefore, 340 stakeholders have sent a powerful message to Congress outlining the immediate actions necessary to ensure CMS has the authority to continue to make telehealth services available once the national health emergency is rescinded:

  • Remove obsolete restrictions on the location of the patient to ensure that all patients can access care at home, and other appropriate locations

  • Maintain and enhance HHS authority to determine appropriate providers and services for telehealth

  • Ensure Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics can furnish telehealth services after the public health emergency

  • Make permanent Health and Human Services (HHS) temporary waiver authority for future emergencies

While federal agencies can address some of these policies going forward, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) does not have the authority to make changes to Medicare reimbursement policy for telehealth under the outdated Section 1834(m) of the Social Security Act. Following these priorities will allow CMS to build on the experience gained during the pandemic and expand access to telehealth in a thoughtful, data-driven way.

 

HIMSS Submits Public Comment Letter on 21st Century Cures Act:

HIMSS offered feedback that focused on leveraging ideas from the 21st Century Cures Act that seek to put our health system and stakeholders on a path to transform healthcare. We fully support the efforts from across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide patients with secure access to actionable information and sets a course for a healthcare paradigm that takes full advantage of the promise of standards-based application programming interface (API) technology.

HIMSS voiced support, at a high level, for the Information Blocking Exceptions in the proposed regulation, as they identify the appropriate categories that will help inform the community as well as define sharing boundaries and expectations that will lead to greater information exchange. Themes from the Information Blocking Exceptions all bolster ONC’s approach: implemented in a consistent and non-discriminatory manner; reasonably related and uniformly applied; and, based on objective and verifiable criteria.