VA officially pauses EHR project

With help from Mohana Ravindranath (@ravindranize)

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Quick Fix

— VA officially pauses EHR project: Coronavirus has forced a delay in the department’s EHR project, secretary Robert Wilkie writes in a letter to Congress.

— Tech companies’ new tools: Big tech unveils new coronavirus tools amid scrutiny and debate.

— A new reporting mandate: A California county has rolled out a new reporting requirement as data gaps hinder the fight against coronavirus nationwide.

And more. But first, the jump.

eHealth tweet of the day: David Crow @davidcrow

“Trying to connect our EHR to anything is fun.

No webhooks. No API. Only email and manual processes.

No real-time calendar. No updated messaging. Just a person logging and transcribing data.”

MONDAY: Your correspondent had a very soothing weekend, chuckling at an exerciser regarding her cell phone while planking, spotting an owl regarding the world from a pine tree branch and doing some very unhealthy baking. Any fun pastimes recently? Share by email at [email protected]. Discuss weekend fun socially @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_eHealth.

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Driving the Day

VA OFFICIALLY PAUSES EHR PROJECT — The Department of Veterans Affairs is delaying its multibillion-dollar EHR project, Wilkie confirmed in a letter Friday. Congressional staffers had been expecting the change, which Wilkie attributed to reallocating staff to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

While the announcement is the second delay in recent months — with the first coming in February, when the department postponed testing of the new Cerner system due to unspecified concerns from users in Spokane, Wash. — Wilkie says the project is nevertheless progressing. He cites 72 of 73 interfaces being completed, and says a joint HIE with the Department of Defense will come online this month. Wilkie doesn’t give an overall schedule for the project.

“Cerner is actively working with VA to reassess and revise deployment timelines,” Cerner said in a statement, saying that it supported the department’s decision.

Health IT Business Watch

TECH COMPANIES’ NEW CORONAVIRUS TOOLS — Tech companies continue to roll out new tools to combat the coronavirus — but they’re attracting some skepticism: Are they private enough? Will they work?

— Dems probe new Apple tool: Four Senate Democrats have pressed Apple to commit to not using personal data from its coronavirus screening app and website for commercial purposes, POLITICO’s Cristiano Lima reports.

In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Sens. Bob Menendez (N.J.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Kamala Harris(Calif.) said they are “concerned for the safety and security of Americans’ private health data.”

They also urged Apple to not sell or share the data it collects with third parties and to disclose its policies for storing data.

An Apple spokesperson pointed to the tools’ privacy policy, which reads: “Apple is not collecting your answers from the screening tool. To help improve the site, Apple collects some information about how you use it. The information collected will not personally identify you.”

— Google providing aggregate location data: Google plans to use its troves of global mobile location data to measure whether consumers are following stay-at-home orders, POLITICO’s Steven Overly reports. The company plans to churn out county-level reports every few days, and says the numbers won’t reveal information about individuals’ travel.

“We have heard from public health officials that this same type of aggregated, anonymized data could be helpful as they make critical decisions to combat COVID-19,” Karen DeSalvo, Google Health’s chief health officer, and Jen Fitzpatrick, the senior vice president of Google Geo, wrote in the blog post.

Google’s life-sciences affiliate Verily has already drawn scrutiny from Congress for its privacy practices. Five Democratic senators, including the aforementioned Harris and Booker, had pressed the company and the administration last month on what will happen to the information Verily collects on the site.

— Florida building coronavirus app?: Florida is shelling out $443,239 to a developer for a coronavirus app of unclear use, our colleague Matt Dixon reports. The contract was made outside of normal procurement laws. According to Gov. Ron DeSantis, the “Covid-19 Community Action Survey” will identify and predict coronavirus trends and guide users in preparedness and response.

The program will collect both anonymous and personally identifying information, according to the site’s privacy policy.

A NEW REPORTING MANDATE — Add Riverside County to the list of jurisdictions adding reporting mandates for laboratories.

As we’ve previously noted, the health care system is starting to perform over 100,000 coronavirus tests per day — but providers, disease detectives and public officials are finding they don’t have enough quality information to do their jobs.

Hence a new wave of reporting mandates imposed by federal, state and local officials requiring laboratories to report more data to more people. This latest round, from Riverside County in Southern California, tells labs to report data to Manifest MedEx, a Californian health information exchange. HIEs have previously expressed their frustration at getting data from labs.

DIGITAL HEALTH FUNDING HITS ANOTHER RECORD — Digital health investment continued to chug along in the first quarter of 2020, reaching a new record with $3.1 billion flowing into startups, a new report from investors Rock Health found.

The sum represents a strong start to the new year after a slightly laggard pace in 2019. (For the first time in Rock Health’s annals, the digital health sector failed to set an annual record last year.)

It’s impossible to tell how the pandemic will affect the sector. The report authors surveyed some investors, who offered contradictory responses: Many said that they personally would continue to invest as usual while expecting the sector’s startups to have a hard time getting access to funding.

— Omada expands access to mental health program: Omada Health is making its program for stress, anxiety and depression available at no cost to employers and insurers, the company announced today. The company offers cognitive behavioral therapy and other techniques to its clients; it delivers the programs through digital tools and coaches, not unlike the diabetes prevention program provision it rose to prominence with.

COMMENT CORNER — Some new comments to chew on:

— Pew to Azar: Pew Charitable Trusts is urging HHS not to delay implementation of its landmark data-sharing rules, writing that access is all the more critical during the pandemic in a new letter.

There’s been some chatter that the pandemic could prompt a delay to the rules; at a Health IT Advisory Committee hearing in March, a CMS official acknowledged that an alteration to the timeline is “something that’s under consideration.”

— MGMA on federal IT plan: The Medical Group Management Association wants ONC to “do more than offer vague promises” when attempting to reduce administrative burden for providers, the organization said in comments to the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan.

MGMA recommended that the plan avoid any mandates for health IT adoption by doctor practices. Without help in defraying costs, “practices with fewer resources will be unable to meet government mandates,” it wrote.