AHRQ requests approval of health IT toolkit

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has requested that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approve the proposed information collection project, “Workflow Assessment for Health IT Toolkit Evaluation.”

Published March 8 in the Federal Register, the notice states that, through the toolkit, end users should obtain a better understanding of the impact of health IT on workflow in ambulatory care for each of the following stages of health IT implementation:
  • Determining system requirements;
  • Selecting a vendor;
  • Preparing for implementation; and
  • Using the system post implementation.

Users also should be able to effectively utilize the publicly available workflow tools and methods before, during and after health IT implementation while recognizing commonly encountered issues in health IT implementation.

“The evaluation will consist of field assessments of use of the workflow toolkit in 18 small- and medium-sized practices and gathering feedback from two Health IT Regional Extension Centers (RECs) who are providing support to some of these practices,” the notice stated. “The evaluation will address the issues of system validation as classically defined in software engineering: determining whether the software or system actually meets the requirements of the user to perform the relevant tasks.”

AHRQ invited the public to comment on the proposed information collection. Comments must be received by May 8.

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