"These new objectives should be less about measuring the process or path a physician takes. Rather, they should focus on how health IT can best support patient goals and better outcomes," said Stack.

For example, instead of just making sure a summary of a care record is sent around, tools should be in place that allow the care teams to co-author, edit and support care plans, he added. Patients should also have the ability to communicate with their care team using the methods they choose.


The associations also urge CMS and ONC to focus on specialty-specific interoperability use cases. That would relieve the burden on physicians as well as ONC because the agency wouldn’t have to find additional data sources for interoperability evaluation.

"Interoperability can mean different things to different audiences," Michael Peters, director of regulatory and legislative affairs at the American College of Radiology, told HCB News.

For example, ACR advocates for seamless, bidirectional connectivity between radiologists and referring providers, including the abilities to send and receive orders electronically, share reports and associated imaging data with referring providers regardless of system and business affiliation, and provide e-access to patients.

"Other specialties have their own uses and priorities related to interoperability and exchange," added Peters.

A few of the other associations that signed the letter are the American College of Cardiology, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Surgeons.

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