EHR/EMR

Public-health researchers, officials and medical professionals rely on data to track outbreaks, advance research, and evaluate prospective treatments. One critical source of patient data comes from electronic health records (EHRs).  EHR data in the U.S. has traditionally been siloed within hospital IT systems, but the federal government and key healthcare stakeholders have recently ramped up

On April 21, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced that, as a response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, it will exercise enforcement discretion to “permit compliance flexibilities” regarding the implementation of the interoperability final rules issued on March 9th, 2020.  This joint announcement was made by the Office of the

On March 9, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued two final rules aimed at improving patient access to electronic health information (EHI), as well as the standardization of modes of exchange for EHI.  The rules, which were issued by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and

Practice Fusion, Inc. (Practice Fusion), an electronic health record (EHR) vendor acquired by Allscripts in 2018, recently agreed to pay $145 million to resolve criminal and civil investigations related to an illegal kickback arrangement with a major opioid company.

The settlement included $26 million in criminal fines and forfeiture to resolve two felony charges related

The new Digital Care Act (Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetz) is part of Germany’s efforts to expand the digitization of the healthcare system in Germany. Germany has already been pursuing this path since the so-called ‘E Health Act’ from 2016. The aim of the ‘E-Health Act’ was to establish information and communication technology in healthcare. It focuses in particular on the development of the ‘electronic health card’ and the corresponding ‘electronic patient file’ for statutory health-insured people (see below for more information on such applications), the protection of the data stored in such files against unauthorised use, the creation of a secure ‘telematics infrastructure’, the improvement of the interoperability of healthcare IT systems, and the provision of telemedical services. The ‘telematics infrastructure’ will be an interoperable and compatible information, communication and security infrastructure for the use of the ‘electronic health card’ and the corresponding ‘electronic patient file’, its applications and other electronic applications in healthcare and health research.

The new Digital Care Act builds upon the ‘E-Health Act’ by focusing on the following: medical doctors will not only be allowed to prescribe traditional medicines and treatment methods to their patients, but also health apps. Such health apps may, for example, remind chronically ill people to take their medicine regularly, or provide a diary function where users can note their daily well-being. In the future, German statutory health insurances funds have to reimburse the costs of health apps under certain conditions. Initially, the health app shall be tested for data security, data protection and functionality by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (‘BfArM’). After the successful test and launch, statutory health insurances will reimburse the costs provisionally for one year. During this period, the manufacturer of the health app must prove to the BfArM that its health app improves patient care. The reimbursement amount will be negotiated with the German Association of Health Insurance Funds (GKV-Spitzenverband).Continue Reading German Government Enacts Digital Care Act

Today, FDA published a notice in the Federal Register announcing a public workshop on July 11-12 entitled “Leveraging Randomized Clinical Trials to Generate Real-World Evidence for Regulatory Purposes.”  This workshop builds on FDA’s ongoing efforts to implement the Real-World Evidence (RWE) Framework published in December 2018, which we previously discussed in this post.

According

On Friday, April 19, 2019, the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) explained in an FAQ the circumstances under which electronic health record (EHR) systems may be subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) liability for an app’s impermissible use or disclosure

On April 19, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a 30-day extension to the comment period for two rules proposed by the HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), originally published on March 4, 2019. These rules, discussed

Following on from the Evidence Standards Framework for DHTs published in December 2018 (the Original Standards, as reported in our previous blog post, here), the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recently published a newly updated version of the standards (the Updated Standards, available here).

The

Digital health record

On March 4, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published two proposed rules to improve patient access to personal health data. The two rules, issued by the HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), are intended to increase interoperability