Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)

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Northrop Grumman to Release Mobile Blue Button for Veterans at HIMSS 2014 Conference

Northrop Grumman is going to release a major upgrade to its Mobile Blue Button for Veterans app during next week's  Annual Exhibition and Conference of the Health Information Management  Systems Society (HIMSS) in Orlando, Florida, according to Jennifer Treger, Director for Northrop Grumman’s Veterans and Military Health Programs. The upgraded app, called the Mobile Blue Button for Veterans has a modified look and feel and has significantly enhanced capabilities. Read More »

Number of Public HIEs Drop, Bringing Viability into Question

Greg Slabodkin | Health Data Management | July 8, 2016

Despite federal funding that aided their creation, the number of community and state health information exchanges is declining as HIEs struggle to remain financially viable now that seed money has dried up. Those are among the results of a new national survey published in the July issue of Health Affairs that tracked community and state HIE efforts soon after federal funding ended. “We found 106 operational HIE efforts that, as a group, engaged more than one-third of all U.S. providers in 2014,” states the study’s authors...

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Obama Administration Announces Key Actions to Accelerate Precision Medicine Initiative

Press Release | The White House | February 25, 2016

A year ago the President announced the launch of the Precision Medicine Initiative to accelerate a new era of medicine that delivers the right treatment at the right time to the right person, taking into account individuals’ health history, genes, environments, and lifestyles. Precision medicine is already transforming the way diseases like cancer and mental health conditions are treated. Molecular testing for cancer patients lets physicians and patients select treatments that improve chances of survival and reduce adverse effects...

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On the Need for Human-Centered Design in EHRs

Health information technology (HIT) has become the hottest political issue in Washington. The healthcare industry in the United States is facing a crisis as medical facilities have spent hundreds of billions of dollars implementing electronic health record (EHR) systems, yet patients and the physicians and nurses that care for them are seeing few benefits. Congress has been holding hearings focused on detailing the problems and trying to write legislation that will provide a solution to the crisis. The HIT interoperability bill drafted by Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-TX) is one example. These are welcome first steps. However, none of the bills currently before Congress, and none of the hearings, are addressing the two most important issues facing medical providers today. These are lack of EHR usability, and the inability to have a patients’ entire medical record at the point of care.

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ONC And FHA Area Call For Participants

Press Release | HIMSS, FHA, ONC | November 13, 2012

Is your organization successfully using nationally recognized standards to securely share patient data with other organizations? Demonstrate your successes within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and Federal Health Architecture (FHA) area in the HIMSS 2012 Interoperability Showcase! Read More »

ONC Annual Meeting on Health IT & Innovation

Beth Walsh | Clinical Innovation + Technology | December 17, 2012

“Innovation is critical to every goal we have as a nation,” said Todd Park, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, “and nowhere is it more important than in healthcare.” Park led a panel discussion on health information exchange and interoperability at the Dec. 12 annual meeting of the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT [ONC]. Read More »

ONC Chief DeSalvo Vacates Role, Reider Resigns CMO Post

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | October 24, 2014

Leadership changes atop ONC raise questions about the agency’s ability to achieve its long-term plans for interoperability...

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ONC Chief Scientist Doug Fridsma Resigns

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | September 22, 2014

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT on Monday announced that Doug Fridsma, MD is stepping down from his post as chief scientist.  Fridsma’s departure comes on the heels of other high-profile resignations, notably the so-called consumerista Lygeia Ricciardi and chief privacy officer Joy Pritts...

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ONC Must End Opposition to Behavioral Health EHRs

Because our policy makers in Washington, DC, wield words as weapons, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT has categorized behavioral health providers as “post-acute care,” thus excluding them from MU funding that has driven EHR adoption elsewhere. While the ONC has created one reality by lobbing definitions, behavioral health advocates are promoting THE reality of mental illness as acute and costly; as debilitating as any disease or condition, if not more so; and as a major co-morbidity factor exacerbating acute illnesses and driving up health care costs. Read More »

ONC Quality Measures Workgroup Wraps Up, Sets Stage For Transition

Marla Durben Hirsch | Fierce EMR | August 12, 2014

The Health IT Policy Committee's quality measures workgroup wrapped up its last meeting Aug. 12, noting how much it had has accomplished in the past four years, but looking forward to work left to be done as it transitions into the new Advanced Health Models and Meaningful Use workgroup...

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ONC Wants Help Exploring FHIR-based Servers and Their Vulnerabilities

Carten Cordell | FedScoop | October 16, 2017

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is capitalizing on National Cybersecurity Awareness Month to explore how to build secure, interoperable servers for sharing electronic health information, and it wants some help from the public. ONC officials have launched the Secure API Server Showdown Challenge to industry stakeholders to build Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, or FHIR, servers that are deemed secure under current industry standards and then see if they can be hacked...

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ONC's 5 Goals For The Federal Health IT Strategic Plan

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | December 18, 2014

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT on Wednesday shared more detail about its vision for the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020 it laid down last week...

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ONC, CMS to Take Part in Provider Data Accuracy Alliance

Kate Monica | EHR Intelligence | June 15, 2017

A multi-stakeholder alliance convened by CAQH will meet to discuss and develop a roadmap for improving provider data accuracy throughout the summer of 2017. Accurate provider information improves the efficiency of various fundamental processes in healthcare ranging from paying claims to procuring provider directories. The Provider Data Action Alliance comprises representatives from provider organizations, health information exchanges (HIEs), federal agencies, and health systems...

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ONC’s John Fleming Wants Patients to Have a Single Unified Health record

Evan Sweeney | Fierce Healthcare | June 2, 2017

A senior administrator with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT said he wants patients to have a unified health record that could pull data from various medical providers into a single record. John Fleming, the ONC’s deputy assistant secretary for health technology reform, outlined his vision that would give patients more control of their medical information during the International Summit on the Future of Health Privacy hosted by Georgetown University Law...

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OSEHRA 2015: CORAnet Solutions CEO to Address Open Source Summit on the Need for Personal Health Information Exchanges

Press Release | CORAnet | July 27, 2015

Cora Alisuag, the CEO of CORAnet Solutions, Inc. will speak on the importance of Mobile Personal Health Information Exchange (PHIE) technologies in providing patients and their caregivers with the critical information needed for their personal care and wellness during the 2015 OSEHRA Open Source Summit taking place in Bethesda, MD July 29 to 31st. Alisuag has been one of the key visionaries who proposed the idea of patients and their family members being able to obtain their personal health records. This concept was embraced by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) under the name of the Blue Button initiative.

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