“Claudia is the ideal candidate to lead this new entity. She is a strategic and transformational leader with national experience managing and scaling health information exchanges. With Claudia, California’s statewide HIE gets the rare combination of breadth and depth,” said Mark Savage, Chairman of the Cal INDEX Board of Directors and director of health information technology policy and programs for the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“We applaud CMS for using innovations in technology to help clinicians select and report meaningful measures for the quality of care patients receive,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. “APIs hold a lot of promise for helping consumers access and use information in a more actionable and easy-to-understand way, which can lead to improved outcomes for both patients and health care providers.”

“The national imperative to transform our healthcare system into one that delivers better care and better outcomes at lower cost cannot possibly succeed without the active engagement of patients and family caregivers,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, which leads the Consumer Partnership for eHealth.

It is becoming easier for consumers to evaluate Affordable Care Act health insurance plans online, though more could be done to enhance the user experience on the exchange websites, according to a report from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

We spoke to GetMyHealthData project coordinator Erin Mackay about how taking ownership of digital health records can help patients have more informed discussions with doctors, and empower those patients to be more involved in their treatment plan.