You have undoubtedly heard of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC-Health IT) 2015 Edition Cures Update Health IT certification and the importance of medical providers using a certified vendor. Even so, there is still a large amount of uncertainty around it. So, what is the 21st Century Cures Act? And why is it so important for small practices? The 21st Century Cures Act was a bipartisan law signed by President Obama on December 13, 2016. The bill set out to increase choice and access to patient care options and streamline medical research and medicine delivery. To achieve this, the bill put in place a set of rules to prevent information blocking and the subsequent denial of patient information that follows. The goal: ensure patient data sharing and patient access to data and support changes in care plans, providers, or insurance plans. Information blocking is when anyone who deals with the storage of electronic health information (EHI) interferes with the access or exchange of EHI, whether intentionally or not.