Evidence-based public policy comes to Washington.

Abstract

The impact public policy has had on our profession in the last 8 years is staggering. Think about it: in 2009 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had just finalized a rule meant to give physicians a small payment incentive to use electronic prescribing, and Dr Francis Collins was being given the keys to a new office as the 16th director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Nearly 8 years later, more than 96% of US hospitals1 and 83% of US office-based physicians2 are using much more robust informatics tools to deliver clinical care, and the NIH is on track to begin enrolling 1 million Americans as part of the Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program. Since passage of the HITECH Act in 2009, lawmakers and regulators in Washington, DC, have expanded health informatics–related policymaking in all directions. What was the domain of CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Care Technology (ONC) a few short years ago is now pervasive across all corners of Health and Human Services (HHS). Over the last 12 months, AMIA has worked diligently to inject …