Health IT amendments in Senate spending bill

With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202) and Darius Tahir (@dariustahir)

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning eHealth will not publish from Aug. 27-Sept. 3. Our next Morning eHealth newsletter will publish on Sept. 4.

HEALTH IT AMENDMENTS IN SENATE SPENDING BILL: The Senate on Thursday evening passed a massive spending package for the Defense, Labor, Education and HHS departments, including a few provisions related to genomic testing, telehealth and EHRs.

As we’ve noted before, one amendment from Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Bill Cassidy directed HHS chief Alex Azar to update Congress on rulemaking under the 21st Century Cures Act related to health IT certification and information blocking. Another, from Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Lisa Murkowski, would set aside funds for telehealth and EHR pilots focused on improving obstetric care for women in rural areas.

Sen. Marco Rubio submitted an amendment requiring Azar to report on circumstances in which CMS provides pays entities in China or Russia to process genome data. A spokesperson told Morning eHealth there was uncertainty as to how many such labs have received payment for services that could “give those governments access to Americans’ DNA.”

Another amendment, from Sens. Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley, would direct Azar to issue a regulation forcing direct-to-consumer drug ads to include pricing information. As our colleague Dan Diamond reported, Grassley had threatened to hold up passage of the bill because it didn’t include that amendment.

The bill is already garnering praise from medical groups including the Association of American Medical Colleges. The package boosts NIH funding by $2 billion, which could “make America more competitive in science and technology,” the group said in a news release.

The House still has to pass its own spending bill.

ONC WANTS INPUT ON EHR REPORTING PROGRAM: ONC is still working on a rule — expected in September — that would define what does and does not constitute information blocking, a practice banned under the 21st Century Cures Act. In the meantime, the agency is gathering input on another Cures provision that establishes an EHR reporting program for health IT developers.

ONC on Thursday issued an RFI on a program that would require health IT developers to provide certain information on their EHRs in order to obtain and maintain certification. Cures directs HHS to gather input from the public about what exactly the reporting criteria should be. Broadly speaking, they should address security, interoperability, usability and certification testing, the law says. The reporting criteria should provide reliable information about the product but not be “unduly burdensome to users or to small and start-up developers,” the RFI says. Responses are due Oct. 17.

FDA RECOMMENDS DIALING BACK PLACEBO USE IN CANCER TRIALS: Our colleague Sarah Owermohle reports that the FDA has recommended limiting the use of placebos in certain clinical trials for cancer. A draft guidance document published Thursday says using placebos in these trials “presents both practical and ethical concerns” and, where possible, experimental cancer drugs should be compared to already-approved, standard of care therapies in randomized trials.

eHealth Tweet of the day: Sherry Reynolds @Cascadia [Retweeted @EricTopol A molecularly driven health-system? What’s that ;-) cell.com/cell/fulltext/… @CellCellPress@CellPressNews by Lee, @wakibbe, @bobgrossman Someday......] A molecular driven health system article behind firewall - perfect metaphor - it is an expensive one only available to some - BTW most health outcomes are the result of #SDOH#ACES and social networks often matter more than individual data points

It’s FRIDAY at Morning eHealth. Your author has been charmed by the play-turned-sitcom “Kim’s Convenience” and the constant references to galbi jjim have her wondering where to get Korean short ribs in the DMV area. News tips and suggestions go to mravindranath@politico.com. Reach the rest of the team @arthurallen202, @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_eHealth.

INSULIN PUMPS MEET SLEEP TRACKERS IN DIABETES STUDY: Evidation Health, which connects patient behavioral data to research programs, is partnering with Tidepool, a nonprofit whose mission is to make diabetes data more accessible, on a new sleep study that aims to combine data from continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, sleep trackers and fitness trackers. Drawing “real world data” from such devices and linking it to medical data “allow[s] us to measure how behaviors — outside of the doctor’s office or hospital — affect health and impact outcomes,” Evidation Health CEO Deborah Kilpatrick said in a news release.

ICYMI: NIH DEBUTS ‘ALL OF US’ RESEARCH HUB: NIH recently unrolled the first phase of a site outlining the data and tools it plans to use for its million-person longitudinal research study. Later this year it plans to beta-test a data browser for viewing information about All of Us research participants, who will have completed surveys about their health, granted NIH access to their EHRs, and donated biospecimens.

SPREADING DISEASE THROUGH VIRAL MEDIA: Russian trolls and bots have joined in a vaccine misinformation campaign on Twitter as part of a strategy to sow discord in Europe and the United States, according to research published Thursday.

… Some of the tweets originate with the Internet Research Agency, the Russian-backed company indicted by the special counsel for meddling in the 2016 presidential election, our colleague Arthur Allen reports. While the Russian agents probably contribute a small percentage of the social media traffic on vaccines, they show particular interest in it, according to the study in the American Journal of Public Health.

The report stunned some public health officials and had others shrugging in amusement. “I was surprised to see that the Russians felt we needed help stoking anti-vaccine fears,” said Paul Offit, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia pediatrician, vaccine developer and author. “I thought we were doing that well enough on our own.”

The study appears amid reports of one of the worst measles outbreaks in Europe in decades, partially fueled by declining vaccination rates. More than 41,000 cases, including 37 deaths, were reported in the first six months of the year. Many U.S. communities have measles vaccination rates low enough to make them susceptible to outbreaks imported from Europe.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is looking for people to serve on a committee of experts to assess the “bioeconomy” — economic activity driven by the life sciences — and come up with strategies for protecting it. The National Academies plans to appoint 16 members from academic, industrial and nonprofit backgrounds.

CORRECTION: The Aug. 23 edition of Morning eHealth gave an incorrect summary listing members of the Medicaid Transformation Project. Former acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt in partnership with 17 hospital systems and hospital innovation network AVIA is forming the collaborative.

WHAT WE’RE CLICKING ON:

— A Kaiser Health News report on mixed reactions to NYU’s tuition-for-all plan

— Futurism’s story on IBM’s efforts to safeguard against algorithmic bias

— Bloomberg reports on investors’ interest in primary care clinics