EHR Affiliation Turns 20: Celebrating Two A long time of Groundbreaking Collaborations and Milestones

By Stephanie Jamison (Greenway Well being), Chair, EHR Affiliation Government Committee

It’s been 20 years since 21 of the business’s main EHR distributors got here collectively to create the HIMSS EHR Vendor Affiliation in 2004 to speed up the widespread adoption of EHRs. The brand new affiliation was additionally tasked with serving to HIMSS set up its strategic course and official positions on points associated to the EHR and offering enter and suggestions on the certification course of established by CCHIT.

Now referred to as the EHR Affiliation, what began as a daring idea continues to be going robust in 2024 with a present membership base of 29 corporations: rivals working collaboratively to advance well being information interoperability, safely embrace new applied sciences, and enhance the standard and effectivity of care. Our preliminary deal with furthering the initiatives specified by the Well being IT Strategic Framework, launched in July 2004 by the Workplace of the Nationwide Coordinator for Well being Data Expertise (now referred to as the Assistant Secretary for Expertise Coverage, or ASTP), has expanded and developed together with the state and federal regulatory setting.

On the time, founding Chair Charlene Underwood described the institution of the EHR Affiliation as a historic alternative to straight influence healthcare supply within the US, noting within the press launch asserting the brand new affiliation that “EHR know-how has confirmed its means to make healthcare safer, extra environment friendly, and extra handy for sufferers in addition to suppliers.

“As EHR distributors,” she continued, “we’ve a accountability to our prospects to form the way forward for interoperability for efficient and safe sharing of affected person information, and to the nation to advertise the widespread adoption of this life-saving know-how.”

In the present day’s well being IT market is vastly completely different from these early years when hospital EHR adoption was 9% and office-based doctor follow adoption was 17%. Now, properly over 96% of hospitals and 78% of physicians use an EHR, most of that are licensed via the ASTP-driven course of. Within the years since its institution, most of the EHR Affiliation’s founding member corporations have gone via acquisitions or mergers, and new entrants have stepped up.

The Developer’s Voice

The Affiliation’s file of accomplishments since 2004 displays the well being IT market’s evolution. Through the years, we’ve labored to make sure our members’ voices had been heard on regulatory and coverage problems with crucial significance to each EHR builders and the suppliers utilizing our applied sciences. We’ve met with policymakers and submitted feedback on all the things from significant use and requirements growth to the Nationwide Well being Data Alternate and TEFCA to the 21^st Century Cures Act and, most lately, HTI-1 and HTI-2.

Our efforts weren’t restricted to providing suggestions and suggestions, nevertheless. We’ve held quite a few Congressional Briefings through the years, specializing in points such because the function of EHRs in value-based care and the twenty first Century Cures Act, in addition to COVID-19 and well being IT, data blocking, and social determinants of well being and well being fairness.

We’ve additionally leveraged our collective experience to offer member corporations with instruments to navigate a tumultuous regulatory panorama. This consists of publishing the business’s first EHR Developer Code of Conduct reflecting our members’ dedication to supporting protected healthcare supply, fostering continued innovation, and working with excessive integrity available in the market—a dedication we preserve to this present day.

Social Initiatives

The Affiliation has additionally discovered methods to make use of our collective experience and expertise to assist social wants. We had been barely a 12 months previous once we joined forces with HL7 and HIMSS for catastrophe response efforts following Hurricane Katrina. The objective was “to alleviate the large lack of healthcare data by the sufferers and suppliers of the Gulf area affected by the hurricanes within the fall of 2005,” with the Affiliation designing and profiling an emergency HIE with low limitations to entry for extraction of abstract medical data from native EHRs.

We later lent our assist as an implementation associate of text4baby, a free well being textual content messaging service that offered data to pregnant ladies and new moms.

The EHR Affiliation additionally focused the nation’s opioid disaster with quite a few actions, together with the publication of Opioid Tapering Implementation Information for EHRs. Earlier than that, in 2019, we joined the ECRI Institute’s Partnership for Well being IT Affected person Security to create steerage for safer opioid prescribing via EHRs, revealed CDC Opioid Guideline – Implementation Information for Digital Well being Data, and held a Congressional Briefing on the nationwide disaster.

In the present day’s EHR Affiliation

Just like the business we serve, the EHR Affiliation itself has developed in tandem with our collective applied sciences. We proceed our mission to enhance the standard and effectivity of care with progressive, interoperable well being IT adoption and use via the efforts of 9 workgroups and 4 activity forces, every devoted to a novel side of well being IT regulation, adoption, and/or utilization. Most lately, we added workstreams particular to synthetic intelligence and privateness and consent administration, reflecting altering dynamics within the well being IT coverage setting.

The EHR Affiliation has completed an excellent deal over the previous twenty years, and our members’ ardour for the work stays even because the scope of each necessities and alternatives grows every year. Please be a part of us as we rejoice 20 years of achievements and sit up for one other 20 years of accomplishments on behalf of our various membership.