Today: ONC’s annual meeting continues

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

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DAY 2 OF ONC’S ANNUAL GATHERING, AND WHAT YOU MISSED FROM DAY ONE: ONC head Don Rucker, executive director Steve Posnack, and others will address the agency’s yearly meeting, with an afternoon plenary addressing clinician burden and the 74-page draft strategy ONC and CMS shared this week on reducing it. (Pros can read our story on the draft here.)

Morning eHealth’s Arthur Allen reports that the continued delay of the much anticipated, interoperability-related rule drops sucked some drama out of the first day of the conference. Still, he heard from colorful remarks from lawmakers, HHS officials, and executives. A taste:

“I called Joe and said, ‘I feel like a butler saying I’ve got the order here, but no one will open door.’ And Biden said, ‘If you don’t like being the butler, try being vice president.’” — Sen. Lamar Alexander, on shepherding passage of the 21st Century Cures Act

“With all the stress people are under, they should not have trouble getting access to their medical records!” — CEO Kelly Hoover Thompson of the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative, on health record sharing during fires and hurricanes.

“The guiding principle is, What is the what? Not the how. Patients need to be able to access their records. To bring them to a new provider. How that happens is up to you.” — Deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan

“American medicine is full of guild behaviors. We want to encourage competition, new business models, innovators, different ways of taking care of patients.” — ONC chief Don Rucker

“It’s so easy to throw a chunk of flaming something over the fence and say, ‘I’m interoperable.’” — Maria Moen, MyDirectives.com

— ONC is also taking another stab at the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement it released last January and will issue a new request for input soon, Arthur reports. Rucker dropped that news after Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Alexander registered bipartisan concern about the need to revise the original TEFCA, which is intended to establish a framework for data sharing across the country. Their comments appeared to reflect complaints from unnamed constituents.

Alexander said he had heard the agreement was “too hard” for physicians. Baldwin, in a “fireside chat” with Rucker, said, “you’re getting a lot of comments on TEFCA. I want to put emphasis on taking those in and doing another go-round.”

Rucker said ONC would be inviting more comment on TEFCA “very soon.” In comments to POLITICO after the event, he couldn’t say whether the invite would come before year’s end.

TEFCA is nuanced and complex and worth delaying to get right, Rucker said. Pros can read the rest of that story here.

eHealth Tweet of the day: Deborah Roseman @roseperson As @suleikajaouad reminds us, an under-discussed #costofcare is *time.* Navigating not just treatment but coverage/cost takes so. much. time. “I wish [my mom] had been able to spend more time with me, and less with my bills.” #talkcostofcare @OurHospitals

It’s FRIDAY at Morning eHealth where your author is fulfilling a millennial stereotype and racking her brain for a low-effort dish to bring to a “Second Thanksgiving.” She suspects her standard potluck contribution of hummus and pita chips will not suffice. Suggestions and news tips go to [email protected]. Tweet the rest of the team at @arthurallen202, @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_eHealth.

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WAITING FOR PRIME HEALTH? AMAZON SCOPES OUT PATIENT SALES: A new app embedded directly in patients’ EHRs lets doctors recommend specific medical supplies to patients, who can then buy them on Amazon, the Wall Street Journal’s Melanie Evans reports.

App developer Xealth says it doesn’t share any patient data with the retailer, and reminds patients that product lists are recommendations only. But the news has irked privacy advocates who say that even a patient’s product viewing history could divulge sensitive health information to Amazon; if a patient has looked at a blood pressure cuff, for instance, it means they likely have high blood pressure.

... This news follows Amazon’s EHR-mining software launch earlier this week.

... A venture capital heavyweight thinks these announcements lay the groundwork for a health-focused, Amazon Prime-like service. Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr made that prediction at a Forbes conference. (CNBC’s Chrissy Farr reports on his other, sometimes puzzling, health-related comments here.)

Elsewhere in the consumer tech world, Lyft has hired Megan Callahan, previously chief strategy officer for McKesson property Change Healthcare, to head its health care business.

… Privacy hawks have argued that ridesharing services could actually expose sensitive information about patients. In a recent blog post, the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Joseph Jerome argued that ridesharing apps could track a customer’s visits to HIV treatment centers or abortion clinics.

RENEWING THE GAG CLAUSE BATTLE: Contracts between health IT vendors and health care organizations could prevent clinicians from reporting important safety and usability issues, according to a group of researchers who took to JAMA to argue against gag clauses limiting the sharing of screenshots and videos of EHRs. Vendors might want to protect their intellectual property, but the gag clauses prevent drawing attention to safety pitfalls and could harm patients, they write. (Read Darius’s reporting from 2015 on such clauses here.)

MICHIGAN RENEWS TELEMEDICINE ABORTION BAN: The Michigan state senate has permanently extended a ban on clinicians prescribing abortion medication to patients via video chat or phone call, The Detroit News reports. As we reported earlier this year, some states let abortion providers virtually evaluate patients before prescribing the medication, though patients must often obtain and ingest it at approved facilities because of FDA restrictions on the medication’s distribution. Researchers including Daniel Grossman say the restrictions are unnecessary; he led a study concluding that abortions administered via telemedicine were just as safe as in-person ones.

... In other telemedicine news, a Canadian hospital is piloting “telerounding”: a process by which a remote physician video chats with patients to do daily assessments. The Western Hospital in Alberton is collaborating with the Medical Society of Prince Edward Island, and telemedicine company Maple on the pilot.

NEWS FROM THE HOUSE: Back in Washington, House Democrats released the chamber’s 2019 legislative calendar, and the GOP Steering Committee chose Rep. Kay Granger to be the top Republican on the Appropriations panel, per our colleague Sarah Ferris.

WICKER WIELDS SPENDING BILL TO PRESSURE FCC: Sen. Roger Wicker is hoping to use a spending bill that would avert a government shutdown to discipline the FCC for what he considers horribly botched measurement of broadband service, our colleague John Hendel reports. “I’ll be very frank: I’m going to try to stick something on the spending bill to make the FCC take another look at this,” Wicker told POLITICO.

... FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who partnered with Wicker to pitch his concept for an FCC telehealth pilot to fund remote monitoring programs, could soon be confirmed for a second term. John reports that Sen. Dan Sullivan signaled he may soon lift his hold on Carr; he and fellow Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski have held up Carr’s nomination for months over a fight with the FCC over rural health care subsidies received by an Alaska telecom company.

Tech leaders, EHR vendor execs and health care executives are scheduled to attend a White House roundtable on interoperability and other health IT issues Tuesday, sources tell Arthur. The agenda of the meeting, which we reported first in October, remain murky, however. Pros can read Darius’s story here.

— Axios reports on insurance startup Bright Health’s $200 million funding round

— A Slate piece describes an ecosystem of med students endorsing products on social media to make extra cash