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
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Patient Access to Electronic Health Data at the Forefront of Two HHS Proposed Rules
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),
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ONC Releases Updated EPHI Guide
We recently posted on the Inside Privacy blog about an update to the Guide to Privacy and Security of Electronic Protected Health Information issued by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information (ONC). The updated guide incorporates the most current standards in accordance with the new final rules,
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Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020 Open for Comment
On December 8, 2014, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) issued the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020. “The Strategic Plan represents a coordinated and focused effort to appropriately collect, share, and use interoperable health information to improve health care, individual, community and public health, and advance research across the federal government in collaboration with private industry.” In developing the Strategic Plan, ONC collaborated with more than 35 federal agencies.
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Leadership, Organizational Changes Characterize the Last Year at ONC
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has suffered the departures of numerous high-level personnel over the last year, including recent changes at the top of the agency.
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