Nov 30, 2007

"With No Human Intervention"

From a recent presolicitation notice posted by the Social Security Administration:
The Social Security Administration (SSA) intends to award a sole source contract under the authority of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.5 to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215. The contract will require BIDMC to jointly develop specifications for a standardized request for medical evidence and response, and an associated implementation guide based on standards approved by the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) and other widely used industry standards. The contract period will be approximately nine months.

The objective of the project will be to evaluate the feasibility, technical alternatives, and potential value of leveraging electronic communication along with structured clinical information with healthcare providers for the disability claims process. A standardized process and associated implementation guides will be developed to leverage provider-based Electronic Health Records (EHR) to generate responses to electronic requests from SSA with no human intervention using standard electronic transactions transmitting structured clinical information, which could result in quicker decisions on disability claims.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That is nothing new--Congress has been expecting the claims piled on vacated desks in field offices to clear themselves with no human intervention for some time now.