ONC & CMS Launch eLTSS

The Office of the National Coordinator for HIT www.healthit.gov and CMS www.cms.gov have launched the new Standards & Interoperability (S&I) Framework’s three year “electronic Long-Term Services and Supports” initiative referred to as eLTSS. The initiative’s goal is to identify standards for the exchange of health information across community-based information systems that deliver Long Term Services and Support (LTSS).

The key challenges for the eLTSS initiative is the limited implementation and use of health IT tools in the LTSS setting, limited financial incentives for service providers to exchange LTSS information electronically, and limited integration of social and behavioral determinants in health records regardless if paper or electronic.

As part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Congress provided incentives to promote the use of community-based tools. As a result, CMS established the “Testing Experience and Functional Tools (TEFT) community-based LTSS Planning and Demonstration Grant Program”.

The TEFT grant program requires the establishment of a person-centered eLTSS record. The eLTSS initiative identifies and harmonizes electronic resource to enable the creation, exchange, and reuse of interoperable person-centered records.

These records are used by healthcare and community-based social service providers, payers, and individuals. The information within the records can help to improve the coordination of health and social services to better support an individual’s mental and physical health.

The eLTSS record will be able to be exchanged electronically across multiple Community-Based LTSS settings such as adult day care, beneficiary homes, group homes, foster homes, assisted living, and other supporting housing and institutional settings.

Last March, CMS awarded TEFT planning grants www.medicaid.gov to nine qualified states to test quality measurement tools and demonstrate ehealth in Medicaid community-based Long Term Services and Support.

This is the first time CMS has promoted the use of health IT in the community-based LTSS system. The grant program is going to provide national measures and feedback on how health IT can be implemented in this component of the Medicaid system. Once an eLTSS standard is identified, grantees will test and validate the standards with selected providers and beneficiaries.

The TEFT grants totaling $42 million were awarded to Arizona ($343,222), Colorado ($382,386), Connecticut ($500,000), Georgia ($489,043), Kentucky ($500,000), Louisiana ($410,215), Maryland ($209,659), Minnesota ($494,967), and New Hampshire ($68,732).

Go to http://healthit.gov/facas/sites/faca/files/HTSC_eLTSS_Factsheet_2014-11-18.pdf for more information on eLTSS.