Advocacy Alert
We need you to ask your Representative to sign onto a letter from Representative Bill Foster (D-IL) and Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) requesting that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) deliver its report on patient matching to Congress as soon as possible.
In the Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, Congress directed ONC to provide a report on patient identification and matching. ONC has been working over the past two years to prepare this report, originally due to Congress in December 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to exacerbate issues with patient identification and matching which endanger patient safety and privacy.
This year, both the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) bill and the Senate draft Labor-HHS bill have removed Section 510 from their bills, which has historically been a barrier to moving forward a national strategy on patient identification. Now more than ever, Congress needs the recommendations from this report to continue progress towards accurately matching patients with their data.
AHIMA needs your help to reach out to your Representative and urge them to sign onto the Foster-Kelly letter and encourage delivery of this vital report to Congress.
