Jerry Seinfeld is back on tour, going to the places that really need to laugh — like Peoria, Illinois and Albany, New York. Makes sense for Jerry to go back to his comfort zone, even if that is not the way to get your jokes to millions of people at once. Apparently, the federal government is going to allow electronic health record holders to go back to their comfort zones too. Formidable health policy influencers are debating how to best implement the nationwide health data exchange known as TEFCA — one of the many terrible acronyms in health care that mostly means “we are trying to allow everyone to have fast access to patient information who needs it, no matter who has it, so our health care system works better.” We are reserving our judgment for now, but the debate boils down to this: the federal agency writing the TEFCA rules is allowing record-holders to use old data standards and charge fees in a bid to get them to participate in the nationwide exchange program. Some people think this is necessary and some people (here, here, here) think it would undermine the entire purpose of TEFCA: to engineer the free and simple exchange of health information. These two sides seem pretty far apart. But as Jerry Seinfeld knows, there is no difference between something that sucks and something that’s great.
August 25, 2023 | 2 min read
August 25, 2023
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