7 ways to get your practice ready for the CMS health tech ecosystem

CMS put a coffin on stage at its Washington headquarters in July, labeled "RIP CLIPBOARD." The theatrics marked the one-year anniversary of the agency's Health Tech Ecosystem, the voluntary pledge that pulled in Amazon, Apple, Google, Epic, athenahealth and roughly 600 other organizations. Behind the showmanship, the CMS Interoperability Framework quietly moved from vision to deadline.

Four of the framework's criteria took effect July 4. Networks now have to expose data through FHIR APIs built on US Core and USCDI v3, return chart notes and scanned documents as FHIR attachments, push appointment and encounter notifications through FHIR subscriptions and stand up record locator functionality. CMS also added eight new pledge categories at the anniversary, including modern scheduling, real-time benefits, price transparency and a diagnostic imaging work group it calls "Ditch the Disk."

None of this is regulation. It is a voluntary framework, and that is exactly why it is easy for a practice to ignore until a patient walks in with a passkey and expects the front desk to keep up. The work in front of practice leaders is mostly diligence, not procurement. Here are seven places to start.