OeHI Connects - May 2019
So far in 2019, the Office of eHealth Innovation (OeHI) and the eHealth Commission have worked diligently on advancing Colorado’s Health IT Roadmap with the support of communities and stakeholders. Efforts are largely focused on securing funding, scoping projects, budgets, and timelines, and soliciting input from stakeholders on approaches to projects and investments. To inform the Consumer Engagement Initiative project requirements, OeHI held focus groups with Colorado residents across the state who manage their own health or a family member's health. Consumers openly shared their perspective on health information, tools, and services they use to make informed health and wellness decisions and what challenges they encounter. These diverse perspectives highlight the importance of both technical and non-technical solutions and the importance of listening to consumers when designing infrastructure, innovations, and policy. Themes from the focus groups were incorporated into a statewide survey, released by OeHI to help prioritize consumer wants and needs for accessing health information. OeHI received nearly 4,000 responses from almost all counties in Colorado! Look for the results of the survey and public forums in the next quarterly newsletter.

In addition to the Consumer Engagement Initiative, OeHI and the eHealth Commission are moving forward various efforts to scope health IT and health information exchange infrastructure projects and investments, support state agencies with sharing data for care coordination and to inform policy, transition governance and technology efforts established with Colorado's State Innovation Model, and partner with Colorado's digital health community in new and exciting ways. Thank you ALL for your support and alignment with Colorado's Health IT Roadmap to improve care and reduce costs for Coloradans.

Upcoming Events
The Prime Health Innovation Summit is almost here!   Come join Colorado’s health innovation ecosystem—policy makers, health care delivery systems, payers, providers, entrepreneurs and investors—as we discuss key priorities of the statewide health IT Roadmap and the role of entrepreneurs in reaching this goal.

The Summit will have a rural health focused pre-conference webinar that participants can join remotely and engage in meaningful discussion before the main event. Topics include: the state of rural health in Colorado; rural health and technology - barriers and opportunities; success stories; and entrepreneurial opportunities and rural innovation.  

On the afternoon of the first day, there will also be a Catalyst HTI "hub crawl" where various tenants (and OeHI!) will host interactive roundtable discussions on hot topics.

The main event will include panels and presentations on issues ranging from care coordination, broadband access, data sharing, and patient engagement from a variety of perspectives to drive alignment between the health care innovation community and the State of Colorado - including some representation this year from the federal government innovation community. 

Tickets are available here . Use code "OEHI" for a $10 discount.

If you are interested in speaking opportunities or sponsorship, reach out to Rachel Dixon at rachel@primehealthco.com
The Colorado Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (CHIMMS) is holding their Annual CXO Breakfast on May 10 at the Brown Palace Hotel. The keynote address will be given by Steve Hess, CIO of UCHealth, on sharing and using data to improve the health of our Colorado community. A panel discussion will follow and include State Representative Mark Baisley (member of the Joint Technology and Health & Insurance Committees), Ray Deiotte (Chief Data Officer at Centura Health) and Dr. Kelly Bookman (emergency medicine physician at UCHealth).

Get your tickets her e .

CHIMSS will be hosting their annual Health IT Advocacy event during the National Health IT Week in September. More details to come in the next quarterly newsletter.
eHealth Commissioner Spotlight
Commissioner Spotlight 
Marc Lassaux
Chief Technical Officer

What do you think is the most important foundation work for the eHealth Commission to tackle this year?
This year is really about pivoting from a planning activity to an impleme ntation and making changes activity. We need to be thinking about the “low hanging fruit” types of high value of activities that we can accomplish, but we also need to still be thinking about the longer term more difficult things to accomplish. As we move forward and learn we must also be able to adjust- things are changing rapidly in this space right now.

Within that important foundation work, what special challenges does the western slope face?
A big challenge is making sure that the health IT needs and capabilities of the western slope are recognized, understood, and are part of the solutions. The Denver area is a big place with many people and many voices and oftentimes the western slope gets forgotten about or marginalized. This is not necessarily unique to the western slope as other rural areas of our state, like the eastern plains/north/south, have similar concerns. We need to make sure the efforts are taking in to account and helping all areas of the state.
Take Action
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ONC and CMS: Proposed Rules & Public Comment
Recently, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) proposed a new rule which aims to support seamless and secure access, exchange, and use of electronic health information (EHI) designed to increase innovation and competition by giving patients and their healthcare providers secure access to health information and new tools, allowing for more choice in care and treatment. It calls on the healthcare industry to adopt standardized application programming interfaces (APIs), which will help allow individuals to securely and easily access structured EHI using smartphone applications.

The proposed rule places a strong focus on a patient's ability to access their health information through a provision requiring that patients can electronically access all of their EHI (structured and/or unstructured) at no cost. Finally, to further support access and exchange of EHI, the proposed rule implements the information blocking provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act and possible penalties up to one million dollars per violation.

What constitutes information blocking?
  • Fees that make data exchange cost prohibitive
  • Organizational policies or contract terms that prevent sharing information with patients or health care providers
  • Technology designed or implemented in non-standard ways that inhibit the exchange of information
  • Patients or health care providers “locked in” to a specific technology or health care network because data is not portable

Some actions that impede the exchange of electronic health information do not constitute information blocking. For example, when an act or course of action is necessary to protect patient safety, privacy, or other compelling interests.

CMS proposed a twin rule on interoperability designed to help improve the quality of and access to personal health information, specifically claims data, as well as access to transparent cost and quality information.

The Office of eHealth Innovation will be submitting comments; please forward any input that you have to Carrie Paykoc at Carrie.Paykoc@state.co.us.

The proposed rules are open for public comment until June 3, 2019 . Learn more about the ONC rule here . Learn more about the CMS rule here .
Roadmap Workgroups:
"At-A-Glance" Updates
Care
Coordination
This initiative seeks to develop, support, and enhance technical approaches that can be used to easily share care coordination information within and across communities while recognizing that approaches to care coordination may be unique to individual communities. 
Project Scope: (Phase 1) Identify and leverage existing care coordination activities, alliances, best practices and tools across the state. (Phase 2) Develop prioritized project plans that address unique community needs and gaps in care coordination while maintaining person-centric lens.
Q1 Accomplishments:
  • Completed a statewide Care Coordination Environmental Scan and Action Plan
  • Developed and reviewed technical architectural diagrams
  • Initiated planning for a complex system mapping with 10.10.10. XGenesis
  • Reviewed a decision support data model for demonstration project selection
  • Submitted a request to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) for federal HITECH funds that leverage state dollars at a 90/10 match rate for qualifying projects
Q2 Next Steps:
  • Proceed with complex system mapping 10.10.10. XGenesis process to help inform next steps
  • Determine the timing and next steps for the demonstration projects
  • Contract and fund demonstration projects to inform broader infrastructure projects
  • Begin high-level requirements for infrastructure projects
Consumer Engagement
This initiative seeks to develop and implement tools to educate, engage, and empower consumers in their health and well-being. 
Project Scope: (Phase 1) Define high-level project requirements based on direct consumer input, a review of available tools, and a gap analysis.
Q1 Accomplishments:
  • Continue efforts with Mosaica Partners to develop high-level project requirements
  • Held focus groups and released statewide survey to inform project requirements and prioritization
Q2 Next Steps:
  • Analyze survey results
  • Conduct gap analysis
  • Draft requirements and suggested approaches for projects
Advance HIE Capabilities
This initiative seeks to develop and implement approaches to harmonize data sharing capabilities, increase the rate of health information sharing, and advance health information exchange across Colorado.
Project Scope: Define scope of work and timelines for available and approved funding to enhance and harmonize health information exchange (HIE) infrastructure among Colorado's regional HIE organizations.
Q1 Accomplishments:
  • Refined and implemented the project intake process
  • Developed project descriptions and details for FFY 20 and 21 HITECH funding request
  • Submitted a request to CMS for HITECH funds that leverage state dollars at a 90/10 match rate for qualifying projects
  • Executed a process with Colorado's State Internet Portal Authority (SIPA) and Office of Information Technology to contract directly with Colorado's Health Information Exchanges; the contract can be used by all state agencies and counties.
  • Drafted timeline for next cycle/milestone
Quarter 2 Next Steps:
Ease Quality Reporting Burden
This initiative provides technology support to ease the capture, aggregation, and reporting of agreed upon quality reporting measures.
Project Scope: This multi-year effort is focused on leveraging investments from the State Innovation Model (SIM) to advance the automatic reporting of electronic clinical quality measures. This project is focused on evaluating and scaling technical infrastructure investments and continuing data governance.
Q1 Accomplishments:
  • SIM funded the development of an electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) solution by Health Data CO
  • SIM onboarded and trained more than 100 practices to use the solution which leveraged existing health information exchange and community partner infrastructure and data to report to state and federal programs
  • The Data Governance Committee refined data validation process and key use cases
  • OeHI and the Colorado Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing (HCPF) submitted a request to CMS for federal HITECH funds that leverage state dollars at a 90/10 match rate for qualifying projects
Q2 Next Steps:
Unique Identity for Providers and Individuals
This initiative develops and implements a comprehensive approach – that includes both health and social services information – that will be used across Colorado to uniquely identify a person and their provider across multiple systems and points of care. 
Project Scope: This multi-year effort has been focused on researching current state identity efforts across state agencies and statewide to inform, design, and implement an agreed upon approach.
Q1 Accomplishments:
  • Submitted interagency agreement to CMS for approval
  • Submitted a request to CMS for federal HITECH funds that leverage state dollars at a 90/10 match rate for qualifying projects
Q2 Next Steps:
Stay Informed