Warner urged that, at a minimum, CMS’ final rule should include standards that guarantee patients have ready access to their personal health data and an ability to regularly monitor the information for accuracy. Patients need to be informed of all commercial uses of their data, including any third parties their data have been shared with, Warner urged.

Major federal rules aimed at stopping information blocking and spurring data sharing are one step closer to being finalized. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s interoperability and information blocking rule is now under review at the Office of Management and Budget, the last step before publication. 

One in six (17%) healthcare executives are “completely unaware” of new legislation that requires greater patient access to healthcare records and sharing of such records—with two-thirds (65%) only “somewhat” or “vaguely” familiar, a new Accenture survey finds.