Morning Headlines 10/15/14

AMA Provides Blueprint to Improve the Meaningful Use Program

The AMA publishes a wish list of Meaningful Use Stage 3 criteria as part of a letter to CMS. Within the list, AMA calls for more flexibility on threshold measurements, reduced penalties for those that fail to meet criteria, and improved interoperability standards.

Joint HIT Committee Meeting

The ONC’s HITPC workgroup will present its conclusions after analyzing the 2013 JASON report that was highly critical of the interoperability plan being pursued in the US. The group will propose an API-based interoperability approach as a path forward.

Highmark-UPMC split raises health records concerns

Pennsylvania state representative Dan Frankel questions whether UPMC, which uses Cerner, will be able to send patient records to other health systems once it severs ties with Highmark Insurance and those patients move on to new care providers.