My Advice to the Trump Administration

 As I ' ve listened to the confirmation hearings for cabinet nominees, I ’ve realized that no one with healthcare IT expertise has yet been identified by the transition team.  I continue to ask all my colleagues about any contact they ’ve had with anyone advising the new administration - so far, no one has been asked anything by anyone related to healthcare IT.At this early time in the administration, it ’s important to offer advice as to the priorities ahead for the next few years.  What would I recommend to the new administration? Here ’s my five point plan:1. Focus on enabling infrastructure - instead of asking for “pledges” to share more data (the pledge idea should never be used again for anything), create the enabling components that will actually make data sharing easier. 21st Century Cures asks the GAO to research the costs and benefits of a national healthcare identifier. Let ’s create a national healthcare identifier and be done with it.  It ’s the simplest and most reliable way to coordinate care across multiple providers and heterogenous EHRs.  Let ’s create a national directory of provider electronic addresses that any application can query to make data exchange simpler.  Let ’s create a unified baseline privacy policy and universal consent for data sharing across all 50 US states.  As I ’ve said many times - you cannot tell the clinicians to drive unless you build roads f...

Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - January 11, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs