Tag Archives: 21st Century Cures Act

April 2023—How is the demand for biomarker tests linked to new oncology drugs playing out in your health system? It is one of several questions laboratory leaders answered in a March 7 Compass Group call led by Stan Schofield, VP and managing principal of the Compass Group and formerly of NorDx/MaineHealth. That and digital pathology and the cost of storage, staffing and wages, the release of results, and the financial implications of the end of the public health emergency were the topics of the day. The Compass Group is an organization of not-for-profit IDN system laboratory leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies.

October 2021—Neither pathologists nor laboratories should panic over the new 21st Century Cures Act rules making laboratory results immediately accessible to patients, pathology leaders agree. Most laboratories already release results to electronic health records and those results are made available in patient portals, and the Cures Act will require little change in how labs send results to EHR systems. But the rules, which took effect April 5, do come with some complexities to navigate. By passing the Cures Act in 2016, Congress aimed broadly to increase interoperability across EHR platforms and to ensure that patients have full, portable, and cost-free access to their health care information. Of most direct relevance to pathology is the Cures Act’s information blocking or open notes rule, mandating that lab report narratives and pathology report narratives, along with six other categories of clinical notes, be available without delay to patients in different electronic formats, including smartphones and secure online portals.