Closing the gap in California’s health data exchange: necessary investments and funding opportunities
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Author(s):
- Block, Lauren, (Of Aurrea Health Group), author Ricker-Kiefert, Kate, author
- Contributor(s):
- California HealthCare Foundation, issuing body.
- Publication:
- [Oakland, CA] : California Health Care Foundation, June 2022
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Financing, Government Health Information Exchange -- economics Health Information Interoperability -- economics California
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- In July of 2021, Governor Newsom signed into law AB 133 (Chapter 143, enacted Health and Safety Code § 130290), the Omnibus Health Trailer bill, which among other things, calls for development and implementation of a statewide Health and Human Services Data Exchange Framework. The law envisions a state in which “every Californian, and the health and human service providers and organizations that care for them, will have timely and secure access to usable electronic information that is needed to address their health and social needs and enable the effective and equitable delivery of services to improve their lives and wellbeing.” The 2021–22 state budget allocated $2.5 million for health information exchange leadership in the state. In addition, the May Revision adds two important grant and technical assistance programs to the 2022–23 budget: (1) Technical assistance grants. A $50 million two-year grant program “to provide technical assistance to small or underresourced providers, particularly small physician practices, rural hospitals, and community-based organizations, as well as education and technical assistance for entities new to health information exchange.” (2) Equity and practice transformation payments. Two hundred million dollars for “grants and technical assistance to allow small physician practices to upgrade their clinical infrastructure, such as electronic health record systems, data collection and reporting capabilities, implementation of care management systems, and other activities that will allow the adoption of value-based and other payment models that improve health care quality while reducing costs.” Hospitals, physician organizations, medical groups, clinical labs, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), health service plans, and acute psychiatric hospitals must execute the data sharing agreement framework by January 31, 2023, with real-time data sharing phased in from January 31, 2024, through January 31, 2026. The state must also engage counties, including health, public health, and social services agencies, to encourage participation by January 31, 2023. California has a local and decentralized approach to governance with distributed authority at the county level, so regions, counties, and communities have developed and procured systems and tools to meet their specific needs without a coordinated state-level approach. As a result, different regions of the state have variable levels of health and social services information exchange infrastructure, though public health is largely excluded from most clinical health information exchange. The goal of this paper is to outline the technological capacity and funding needs of delivery system providers who must comply with AB 133. The authors identified four categories of investments necessary to achieve robust interoperability based on stakeholder engagement: (1) Onetime technical system and infrastructure investment (2) Technical system and infrastructure maintenance and operations (3) Policy and implementation support (4) Staffing/workforce. The paper also outlines existing federal funding streams that, if leveraged, could support interoperable data exchange, as well as anticipated remaining funding needs that will require targeted investments to close the gap in data exchange capabilities.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (34 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918557476306676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918557476306676