On Dec. 13, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released a final rule making updates to the ONC’s Health IT Certification Program with new and updated standards, implementation specifications, and certifications criteria, including new transparency requirements for artificial intelligence and predictive algorithms (decision support interventions, or DSIs) that are part of certified health IT. This rule is the first of what is expected to be a series of rulemakings entitled health data, technology, and interoperability (HTI) — and thus referred to as HTI-1 by the ONC.
Notably, the final rule, for the first time, revises certain aspects of the information blocking rules, including definitions and exceptions to better support information sharing. It also creates a new exception to encourage the exchange of electronic health information under the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement.
The ONC released several fact sheets of the rule, including an overview fact sheet, DSI fact sheet, information blocking updates fact sheet, and a key dates fact sheet.
- Washington Highlights