ONC shares 10-year vision for interoperable health IT
As widespread health IT adoption propels the demand for greater data exchange, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) released a report outlining its vision for nationwide interoperability to move to a learning health system.
Changing payment and delivery systems drive a desire from employers, payers and health organizations to share data to reduce redundancy and waste and improve care, explained National Health IT Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, in a blog post on the new 13-page report.
“We have heard loudly and clearly that interoperability is a national priority. We also see that there is a tremendous opportunity to move swiftly now,” she wrote. “Clinicians are ready for data to enable and inform care and improve their efficiency. Innovators are stretching our imagination on ways to collect and appropriately use data to improve health. And evolving technology is providing us with promising new ways to achieve interoperability.”
To realize nationwide interoperability by 2024, ONC plans to develop a shared agenda that focuses on the incremental roll-out of the following five building blocks:
- Core technical standards and functions
- Certification to support adoption and optimization of health IT products and services
- Privacy and security protections for health information
- Supportive business, clinical and regulatory environments
- Rules of engagement and governance
ONC plans to develop use cases and goals for three, six and ten-year timeframes for each of these building blocks, DeSalvo wrote. She also took time to define interoperability as: allowing individuals and care providers to securely search, retrieve, send and receive essential, electronic health information; having a sustainable, equitable governance structure that is flexible and resilient; supporting novel data sharing and analysis, including patient-generated data and data from other sources beyond the healthcare delivery system; and reflecting many of the values and concepts in the JASON report, “A Robust Health Information Technology Infrastructure.”
Read ONC's full report, Connecting Health and Care for the Nation, here.