The American Hospital Association has sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget indicating its support for CMS to develop a public health database that electronically collects the data hospitals are required to submit to meet meaningful use criteria.
Last month, CMS released a notice regarding its intention to automatically collect data from public health agencies, as "the burden for each individual eligible provider to determine the readiness of multiple public health agencies and registries could be nearly eliminated if we were to maintain a database on the readiness of public health agencies and registries."
As of now, CMS has not moved forward with developing the database. The AHA is encouraging CMS to expedite this development. The letter, written by Linda Fishman, AHA senior vice president of public policy analysis and development, states: "The proposed information collection would decrease burden on providers, as well as often underfunded public health agencies and registries, by establishing a single, central repository of information and eliminating multiple individual inquiries to multiple public health agencies and registries."
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