The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announced a new online form where users of certified electronic health records and other health IT products can file complaints, Healthcare IT News reports (Miliard, Healthcare IT News, 9/14).

In a "Health IT Buzz" blog post, ONC acting Deputy National Coordinator Jon White wrote that the new online form will help ONC "better triage, track, route and respond to your health IT concerns or challenges."

White noted that users of certified health IT products should submit complaints for issues related to:

• Health data exchange;
• Health information blocking, which ONC defines as "when someone or an entity knowingly and unreasonably interferes with the exchange or use of health information";
• Performance;
• Product safety; and
• Usability (Murphy, EHR Intelligence, 9/11).

However, ONC noted that before submitting a complaint using the online form, users should first contact their health IT developer or vendor and ONC's Authorized Certification Body.

White wrote, "While we may not always have the ability to step in and fix the problem, we may be able to help in others ways, such as beginning a dialogue between you and your vendor/developer." He added, "Submitting your concerns to us also helps us better understand the extent and nature of potential problems so we can more accurately represent them to Congress and our federal partners and work with them to develop solutions" (White, "Health IT Buzz," 9/11).

According to Politico's "Morning eHealth," a timing issue by HHS caused a delay in the launch of the new form, which was expected to go live on Friday after the announcement. However, as of Tuesday users were met with an access denied message, saying they are not authorized to access the webpage (Pittman et al., "Morning eHealth," Politico, 9/15).