AMA: Health IT proposals must do more for patient privacy

CHICAGO —The American Medical Association (AMA) has submitted comprehensive comments to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in response to the sweeping set of proposed changes to health information technology certification and implementation of the 21st Century Cures Act and to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in response to its proposal on patient access and interoperability.

The AMA supports several of the proposed changes, especially around health IT vendor practices, technology development, and Electronic Health Record (EHR) performance. The AMA also identified proposals that could prove problematic and run counter to the goals Congress set out to achieve in the Cures Act, particularly around privacy.