In effect as of this week, April 5th, The Cures Act Final Rule implements some of the key provisions outlined in the 21st Century Cures Act to advance interoperability, support seamless exchange, access, and use of electronic health information, and addresses information blocking. Specifically, the Final Rule defines health information technology (health IT) certification requirements to enhance patients’ smartphone access to their health information at no cost through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).
This regulation was put in place to ensure health care providers, networks, and IT developers of certified health IT are not engaging in information blocking. The means that health care actors cannot block the access, exchange or use of ePHI, with a few exceptions, or it will result in an investigation and penalty. You can find the exceptions out lined here: https://www.healthit.gov/curesrule/final-rule-policy/information-blocking
