There is so much to read. The number of white papers, news stories, and blog posts that came out this week on burning health policy issues is overwhelming. Health Affairs must have set a new record for the number of blog posts (“Forefront” articles) published in a week: 13! To get through it all, we decided to use sugar therapy and purchased some SweeTARTS. Turns out, there is writing on those too. One word on each side of the SweeTART– like “funny and fierce” or “wild and wise.” This “be both” campaign is the candy company’s attempt to reach a new generation of candy-eaters who don’t want to choose between the multiple aspects of their awesomeness. In the One Thoughtful Paragraph, we explain how several authors are awesome in their clear descriptions of how private companies can help promote interoperability.
News demonstrating how organizations are being awesome in the digital health policy space:
- The Peterson Health Technology Institute released a digital health assessment framework to evaluate the performance of health technologies like care management apps and remote patient monitoring.
- Health information exchange (HIE) platforms are helping with social determinants of health. Four HIEs are using $15.5 million from American Rescue Plan Act funding to create a single referral platform connecting Pennsylvania patients to social needs relevant to their healthcare. South Dakota’s Department of Health is leaning on health IT company Findhelp to develop a community information exchange that will help patients gain access to social services across the state.
- Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Brown University were supported by PatientRightsAdvocate.org and Arnold Ventures to assess the implementation of health plan and hospital price transparency requirements and how certain changes to health care pricing data can better help employers and consumers.
Everything is awesome! Or, COVID is raging, our political system is imploding, and information overload is so bad in the health policy space that we are resorting to handfuls of Halloween candy in September. This is why The Lego Movie theme song Everything is Awesome is the perfect backdrop for our thoughts today. The irony is that we are featuring a blog post that is quietly awesome — drafted by people who seem to be well-rested and thinking clearly. On September 8, 2023, a succinct post called To Advance Interoperability, Look to Market-Based Strategies, was published in the Forefront section of Health Affairs. The co-authors explain that managed care contracts — whether for private or public sector health system purposes — should include compliance with federal interoperability policy as a term in their agreements. And then, before anyone’s eyes could glaze over, the blog post provides TWO EXAMPLES of how to do just that. A crazy and unanticipated bit of practical help on how to mandate both flexible and specific interoperability requirements so that the private sector can achieve seamless connectivity, data integration, and cost containment. No sugar high needed to get through this blog post because everything is cool when you’re part of a [private-public sector] team.
