Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)

See the following -

Aligning with the Standards Development Community: The New Cycle for Standards Version Advancement Process

As part of ONC’s ongoing charge to coordinate across federal and industry stakeholders, we determined it was necessary to adjust our Standards Version Advancement Process (SVAP) timeline. Although it may seem like this process has been around for a while, it’s still brand new and we’ve been looking at ways to optimize how the process aligns with other standards development work in the community. The changes we’ve made will help ensure timely publication of implementation specifications central to our cadence for new versions of USCDI.

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10 Steps to Achieving Interoperability

Bernie Monegain | Healthcare IT News | December 9, 2015

When nine organizations -- several of them health IT vendors -- urged Congress in a Dec. 7 letter to resist delaying Stage 3 of the Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Program, the plea came with an outline for strengthening interoperability. "What is clear to us is that current requirements and pace of the Meaningful Use program have taken away time and valuable resources from fixing our nation's interoperability problem, the organizations -- Apervita, athenahealth, Intel, National Alliance on Mental Illness, New Directions Technology Consulting, Oracle, United Spinal Association and Verizon -- wrote in their letter to Congressional leadership...

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15 Blockchain Whitepapers Awarded Winners of US Department of Health and Human Services Challenge

Luke Parker | Brave New Coin | August 30, 2016

A challenge held by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  to encourage Blockchain use in the Health Information Technology field resulted in 15 winning whitepapers. The Department’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) first announced the “Use of Blockchain in Health IT and Health-Related Research” challenge in July...

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2 Winners Named For ONC's Blue Button App Challenges

Mary Mosquera | mHIMSS | October 11, 2012

A California-based developer of mobile technology tools and a Virginia-based provider of communications solutions for care providers have been named the winners of two Blue Button app competitions sponsored by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. Read More »

21st Century Cures and the Road Ahead

I’ve been writing fewer posts recently because the trajectory forward for healthcare and healthcare IT seems to be evolving very rapidly.   In just the past week, we’ve had: the American Hospital Association letter suggesting that 21,000 pages of regulations be rolled back including Meaningful Use Stage Three concepts and quality measurement in many care settings, the passage of the 21st Century Cures bill and its many IT related mandates, and the nomination of Tom Price for HHS Secretary  and Seema Verma for CMS administrator...

3 IT Lessons Learned From ONC's Western States HIE Consortium

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | September 10, 2013

A group of 13 states came together in 2011 to iron out the process, technology, policy and governance issues to enable interstate health information exchange via Direct. In collaboration with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, the Western States Consortium (WSC) on Friday published its final report from the ongoing efforts. Read More »

4 Potential Candidates To Replace Mostashari

Bernie Monegain | Government Health IT | August 7, 2013

The announcement Aug. 6 that Farzad Mostashari, MD, would be stepping down from his job as national coordinator for health information technology this fall  led much praise about his passion for the work, and his many achievements. Read More »

A New Pothole on the Health Interoperability Superhighway

Adrian Gropper | The Health Care Blog | August 15, 2017

On July 24, the new administration kicked off their version of interoperability work with a public meeting of the incumbent trust brokers. They invited the usual suspects Carequality, CARIN Alliance, CommonWell, Digital Bridge, DirectTrust, eHealth Exchange, NATE, and SHIEC with the goal of driving for an understanding of how these groups will work with each other to solve information blocking and longitudinal health records as mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act...

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A Public Health Perspective on ONC's Strategy to Reduce Burden on Physicians

On November 28, 2018, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released a draft Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs for public comment. The strategy aims to reduce the time and effort and improve the functionality of electronic health records (EHRs) for clinicians, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations. This strategy was developed primarily through the efforts of ONC-convened workgroups in response to requirements laid out by Congress in the 21st Century Cures Act (Section 13103). The report itself does not identify who exactly served on these workgroups and what organizations were represented.

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A Snapshot of ONC's Global Health IT Efforts

On today's World Health Day, I'd like to give you an inside look at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's (ONC) global health IT work. Advancing digital health (or e-health) is gaining worldwide momentum as nations seek to leverage health IT. While each country and jurisdiction has a different approach to healthcare, global digital health advancements are becoming a common thread across the world. In December 2010, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the European Union (EU) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to galvanize cooperation on advancing digital health in both regions. The MOU focuses on three areas: interoperability, workforce, and innovation.

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A Web Services Approach to Public Health Clinical Decision Support

David Raths | Healthcare Informatics | October 22, 2016

Although it is still early days, I am increasingly convinced that the movement to bring a web services approach to healthcare is real. Every week brings announcements of new efforts to create modules that do one thing well and that providers could subscribe to from within their EHR. This approach makes so much more sense than each provider working with its software vendor to recreate the wheel.This is especially appealing in the realm of clinical decision support (CDS), in which knowledge management is so time-consuming and difficult for provider organizations...

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A Welcome Extension, For Most

Anthony Brino | Government Health IT | December 9, 2013

After months of physicians, hospitals and IT groups calling for more time to complete Meaningful Use, the federal government responded. Although not everyone is pleased. Read More »

AAFP Calls For A Less Burdensome ONC Interoperability Plan

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | January 20, 2015

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) is seeking to reduce regulatory burdens on providers in response to a request for commentary on the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015–2020 recently published by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)...

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Advice To The Next National Coordinator

John Halamka | Life As A Healthcare CIO | October 8, 2013

Over the next few months, Jacob Reider will serve as the interim National Coordinator for Healthcare IT while the search continues for Farzad Mostashari's permanent replacement. Read More »

AHRQ Announces Health IT Research Funding Opportunities

Sara Heath | EHR Intelligence | April 1, 2016

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will be sponsoring research projects geared toward bettering health information technology, according to a public statement. Specifically, the agency seeks to support research for improving the safety of health IT to better inform policymakers at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)...

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