# Presentation: 547714

## American Health Information CommunityChronic Care Workgroup Recommendations

**Craig Barrett**
- Intel, Co-Chair
- June 12, 2007

## Workgroup Member List

_**Co-Chairs: **_
- Craig Barrett 		Intel
- Tony Trenkle 		HHS/Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
_**Members: **_
- Madhulika Agarwal	Veterans Health Administration/Office of Patient Care Services
- Cheryl Austein-Casnoff	HHS/Health Resources & Services Administration, HRSA/HHS
- Justine Handleman	Blue Cross/Blue Shield
- Shaygan Kheradpir	Verizon Communications
- Herb Kuhn		HHS/Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Eric Larson		Group Health Cooperative
- Jonathan Linkous	American Telehealth Association
- Stephen McConnell	Alzheimer’s Association
- Mohan Nair		The Regence Group
- Anand Parekh		HHS/Office of Public Health and Science
- Jeff Rideout		Cisco
- John Rother		American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)
- Jay Sanders		The Global Telemedicine Group
_**Office of the National Coordinator:**_
- Karen Bell

## Chronic Care Workgroup Overview

**Broad Charge:**
- 	Make recommendations to the Community to deploy widely available, secure technologies solutions for remote monitoring and assessment of patients and for communication between clinicians about patients.
**Specific Charge:**
- 	Make recommendations to the Community so that within one year, widespread use of secure messaging, as appropriate, is fostered as a means of communication between clinicians and patients about care delivery.

## Use Case Development: Secure Messaging

_**Recommendation 1.0: **_**Given that the HITSP interoperability standards and certification criteria for secure messaging and advanced electronic technologies for clinical monitoring have not been included in the development of either of the first two sets of use cases and that interoperability between patient and clinician electronic health products is critical for improving quality of care, the Secretary should make a use case for interoperability with respect to remote care a top priority.**

## Business Case Alignment 

_**Recommendation 2.0:**_** In order for a clinician to be reimbursed by Medicare for providing services delivered through advanced electronic technologies, current statute requires the patient to be in a specific clinical setting.  The Secretary should develop legal guidance that defines the clinical setting by the information collected, diagnostic services performed and treatments rendered. This guidance should take into account potential concerns with fraud and abuse, violation of Stark laws, HCPCS codes,  and other possible mitigating factors.**

## Business Case Alignment

_**Recommendation 2.1: **_**The Secretary should conduct demonstration projects to determine the value of telehealth services in clinical settings beyond those listed in** **Federal statute in order to make informed decisions about expansion of that list.**

## Business Case Alignment

_**Recommendation 3.0:**_** The Secretary should evaluate the benefits of remote store and forward technology as currently employed in Alaska and Hawaii to determine if these services should be expanded beyond these two states.**

## Business Case Alignment

_**Recommendation 4.0: **_**The Secretary should conduct demonstration programs through the Special Needs plans and Medicare Advantage plans that specifically evaluate the use of home based, remote care monitoring for the management of specific chronic conditions by clinicians of record. **