In a potential big advancement for oncology treatment and information sharing, several leading electronic health record vendors this week made voluntary commitment to adopt the United States Core Data for Interoperability Plus Cancer, or USCDI+ Cancer, a recommended minimum set of key cancer-related data elements to be included in a patient's EHR. 

They've also pledged to support the necessary data elements for a new cancer care payment model developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

WHY IT MATTERS

The Cancer Moonshot Initiative, which was first launched in 2016 and then resurrected in 2022, is a multipronged effort that aims to lower costs and improve patient care and outcomes for cancer patients and requires EHRs to embrace interoperability and new data standards.

According to Tuesday's White House Office of Science and Technology Policy blog, in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, the National Institutes of Health, CMS and the Cancer Moonshot, the group of EHR developers voluntarily committed to adopting data elements that cover vital information about a person’s treatment history, test results and disease status to improve data sharing by healthcare providers.

The Administration said that adoption by Epic, Oracle Health, Meditech, athenahealth, Flatiron, Ontada, ThymeCare and CVS Health EHRs will improve care coordination for people facing cancer nationwide, especially in rural and underserved areas. Standardizing data across the EHRs also opens new possibilities for faster research results and more effective public health interventions, OSTP also noted in a blog post.

Because the EOM data elements also form the core of USCDI+ Cancer, a recommended minimum set of key cancer-related data elements to be included in a patient's EHR, the Administration said it is calling upon the entire healthcare ecosystem to support national health information exchange.

THE LARGER TREND

Health data and research have for too long been trapped in silos, former President Barrack Obama noted in January 2016, when he announced the Cancer Moonshot in his final State of the Union Address – and appointed then Vice President Joe Biden to lead it.

At the time, he said only 5% of cancer patients in the U.S. ended up in a clinical trial.

"Most aren’t given access to their own data," Obama said. "At the same time, community oncologists – who treat more than 75% of cancer patients – have limited access to cutting-edge research and advances."

That number has gone up, according to research published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2021. 

By 2020, "at least 25.4% of adult cancer patients were estimated to participate in one or more cancer clinical research studies," the researchers said, concluding that based on enrollment data from the Commission on Cancer, "enrollment to cancer treatment trials was 6.3%, higher than historical estimates of <5%."

Now, FHIR-based oncology data exchange through the EOM could improve oncology delivery for years to come, said the Digital Medicine Society's Jennifer Goldsack. 

She told Healthcare IT News in January that harnessing the power of digital innovation to achieve the goal of reducing cancer deaths by 50% becomes possible when data is flowing. 

"Data doesn't live in a manilla folder in a file cabinet with either the only the practice manager or the principal investigator of a clinical trial being the one with access."

With the right interoperability specifications and privacy and security can fundamentally change how we deliver healthcare, Goldsack said.

"We've been talking about learning health systems and precision medicine for decades, but now, we can deliver."

ON THE RECORD

"These commitments are not to us, but to the people who rely on these electronic health record systems, including providers and patients," Dr. Danielle Carnival, deputy assistant to the President for the Cancer Moonshot, said in the blog. "We commend this voluntary action from leaders in the electronic health record developer community, as it will help clinicians provide better treatment for people living with cancer."

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.