21st Century Cures Act: Notes and test results now shared immediately with patients
Concurrent with the eStar update on March 28, the third and final phase of VUMC’s rollout of making patient information (i.e., test results and medical record notes) immediately visible in My Health at Vanderbilt (MAHV) went live.
These changes were necessary to meet key parts of new federal rules issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), as part of the 21st Century Cures Act. The rules emphasize that patients are in charge of their health records and mandate that all health systems across the country give them easy, electronic and secure access to their Electronic Health Information.
As of March 28, 2021, these changes are complete:
- Immediately release test results1 within MHAV for all adult, adolescent2 and pediatric patients
- Automatically share all in-scope notes with patients via MHAV3
Please note that these changes will only apply to current and future notes; historical notes will not be shared automatically.
A new training module is available in the Learning Exchange.
Patients are not required to view this information in MHAV. They may disable their MHAV accounts (not recommended) or test result notifications.
Information, including FAQs and important links, is available on the VUMC Interoperability and Information Blocking website: https://www.vumc.org/interoperability. Specific questions may be directed to the team at interoperability@vumc.org.
1 Test results in very specific instances (i.e., skeletal surveys in young children, Huntington’s disease, and indications of sexual activity or some substance use by adolescents (13-17)) are excluded from immediate sharing.
2 Providers will have the option to withhold radiology results from MHAV for adolescent patients (13-17). Tip sheet in development.
3 Clinicians writing the note may clinically judge that Privacy or Harm exceptions apply. In these situations, the clinician may block the note by clicking the “Share” button and selecting a reason from this list:
- Blocking substantially reduces risk of harm to life or physical safety of patient or another person.
- Patient or legal representative has requested the note be blocked.
- Blocking is allowed by state laws pertaining to adolescents (13-17) or substance use disorder or treatment.