Questions and requests for stakeholder feedback from previous ISA review and comment periods are below. For questions and requests for feedback prior to 2016, see Historical ISA Publications. Comments on and responses to these questions remain on the Questions and Requests for Stakeholder Feedback page, or may be included in comment letters received posted elsewhere on the ISA.
Questions for the 2018 Review and Comment Period
18-1. In what ways has the ISA been useful for you/your organization as a resource? ONC seeks to better understand how the ISA is being used, by whom, and the type of support it may be providing for implementers and policy-makers.
18-2. Over the course of 2018, some new functionality has been added to the ISA, with more enhancements expected through 2018 and 2019. Are there additional features or functionality that would enhance the user experience?
18-3. Is the existing ISA format used for listing standards and implementation specifications applicable for listing Models and Profiles? Are there additional or different attributes that should be collected for them? Are there additional models and/or profiles that should be listed? Are models and profiles useful for inclusion in the ISA?
18-4. Are there additional informative or educational resources that can be provided to help stakeholders better understand the ISA, health IT standards, interoperability, etc?
Questions for the 2017 Review and Comment Period
General
17-1. In what ways has the ISA been useful for you/your organization as a resource? ONC seeks to better understand how the ISA is being used, by whom, and the type of support it may be providing for implementers and policy-makers.
17-2. Over the course of 2017, various new functionality has been added to the ISA to make it a more interactive and useful resource (e.g., print-friendly pages, change notifications, advanced search functionality, etc). Are there additional features or functionalities that would enhance the overall experience?
17-3. An Appendix II has been added that includes educational and informational resources as recommended by the Health IT Standards Committee/2017 ISA Task Force. Are there other topics and/or existing resources which would be helpful to include in this area to increase stakeholder understanding of health IT interoperability issues?
Section I: Vocabulary/Code Set/Terminology Standards
17-4. Are there additional Interoperability Needs (with corresponding standards) that represent specific sociodemographic, psychological, behavioral or environmental domains that should be included in the ISA?
Section II: Content / Structure Standard and Implementation Specifications
17-5. A new interoperability need, Reporting Birth Defects to Public Health Agencies was added to Section II-R: Public Health Reporting. Please review and provide comment about the accuracy of the attributes.
Section III: Standards and Implementation Specifications for Services
17-6. A new subsection, III-J: Consumer Access/Exchange of Health Information has been added, with four interoperability needs. Please review and provide comment about the accuracy of the attributes. ONC also seeks suggestions for additional consumer access related interoperability needs for inclusion, as well as other known standards or Open APIs that should be listed for existing consumer access interoperability needs.
Section IV: Models and Profiles
17-7. Is the existing ISA format used for listing standards and implementation specifications applicable for listing Models and Profiles? Are there additional or different attributes that should be collected for them? Are there additional models and/or profiles that should be listed?
Section V: Administrative Standards and Implementation Specifications
17-8. Please review the contents of the new Section V: Administrative Standards and Implementation Specifications and provide comments about the accuracy of any of the listed standards/specifications and attributes.
17-9. Are there additional administrative-related interoperability needs that should be listed in this section?
17-10. For Interoperability Need: Health Care Claims or Equivalent Encounter Information for Institutional Claims, feedback is requested on the update process for X12 standards, and how a more streamlined process can be implemented with greater industry engagement. Other improvement ideas are also encouraged to enhance the benefit of the transaction.
17-11. For Interoperability Need: Health Care Claims or Equivalent Encounter Information for Dental Claims, feedback is requested from the dental community on enhancements to the transaction to increase uptake on electronic transactions.
17-12. For Interoperability Need: Enrollment and Disenrollment in a Health Plan, feedback is requested on the use of the adopted enrollment transaction, its value to the industry, and any enhancements that could be made to increase utilization.
17-13. For Interoperability Need: Electronic Funds Transfer for Payments to Health Care Providers – Professionals and Institutions, are there known barriers to the use of the EFT transaction based on contract concerns, excessive fees, enrollment constraints or other non-EDI issues?
17-14. For Interoperability Need: Health Care Payment and Remittance Advice, feedback is requested on how the transaction or use by the submitter and/or receiver can be improved to enhance its use and increase the value of the transaction.
17-15. For Interoperability Need: Referral Certification and Authorization Request and Response for Dental, Professional and Institutional Services, feedback is requested to better understand the workflows that will increase adoption of this transaction.
17-16. For Interoperability Need: Operating Rules to Support Eligibility and Claim Status Transactions (Phase II), feedback is requested on: a) the process for creating the operating rules; b) current adoption of the batch vs. real time rules for both providers and health plans; c) need for other operating rules that will improve adoption of the transactions.
17-17. For Interoperability Need: Operating Rules for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA) for Payments and Reconciliation (Phase III), feedback is requested on other operating rules that will increase adoption and/or use of the standards for EFT and ERA.
Questions from December, 2016 ISA publication.
As with the previous Interoperability Standards Advisories (ISA), posing questions has served as a valuable way to prompt continued dialogue with stakeholders to improve the ISA. Your feedback on the questions posed below is critical and we encourage answers to be submitted as part of the current public comment process.
General
1. Based on public comment and Health Information Technology Standards Committee recommendations, the ISA is now an interactive web application. What additional functionalities would make the ISA more useful as a resource?
2. In what ways has the ISA been helpful? What are ways in which the ISA could be improved to add value to nationwide standards adoption and use?
3. For each standard and implementation specification there are six assessment characteristics, for which detailed information has been received and integrated. However, some gaps remain. Please help complete information that is missing or noted “feedback requested”. Additionally, assessing the adoption and maturity of standards is an ongoing process, so please continue to provide feedback if you believe something has changed or is not correct.
4. The table beneath the standards and implementation specifications includes limitations, dependencies, and preconditions. Please comment on accuracy and completeness; where information gaps remain, forward applicable content.
5. For the Implementation Maturity characteristic for the standards and implementation specifications, ONC plans to publish a link, where available, to published maturity assessments based on known published criteria. Please help identify any publications that are publicly available and provide the hypertext links to those resources.
6. For the Adoption Level characteristic for the standards and implementation specifications, ONC plans to include reference annotations or links to publicly available documentation known about adoption levels for listed standards. Please help identify any publications that are publicly available and provide the hypertext links to those resources.
7. For the Test Tool Availability characteristic for the standards and implementation specifications, ONC plans to publish references, where available, a to the publicly available test tool. Please help identify any publicly available test tools.
Section I: Vocabulary/Code Set
8. Are there additional Social Determinant Interoperability Needs with corresponding standards that should be included in the ISA?
9. For consideration of a new subsection Representing Birth and Newborn Data Sets-Please comment on the feasibility and maturity of birth and newborn datasets, including the IHE Newborn Discharge Summary, that can be transferred between mother, newborn and pediatric medical home records.
Section II: Content / Structure
10. The way FHIR is represented has changed in the ISA based on public feedback. Please provide feedback on whether this is a better way to reference FHIR within Interoperability Needs.
11. Subsection II-G: Diet and Nutrition was added. Please review and provide comment about the accuracy of the attributes.
12. Subsection II-K: Healthy Weight was added. Please review and provide comment about the accuracy of the attributes.
13. Subsection II-P: Patient Identification Management was added. Please review and provide comment about the accuracy of the attributes.
Section III: Standards and Implementation Specifications for Services
14. Subsection III-E: Patient Identification Management was added. Please review and provide comment about the accuracy of the attributes.
Section IV: Models and Profiles
15. Is the traditional ISA format used for listing standards and implementation specifications applicable for listing Models and Profiles? Are there additional or different attributes that should be collected for them? Are there additional models and profiles that should be listed?
Appendix I: Sources of Security Standards
16. Are there other authoritative sources for Security Standards that should be included in Appendix I?