FTC, ONC collaborating on HIT competition

Following up on a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) workshop last spring on health IT competition, the agency has announced plans to collaborate with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) to help promote competition in health IT.

In an ONC blog post, ONC Policy Director Jodi Daniel, JD, MPH, and Karson Mahler, JD, ONC policy analyst, wrote that the workshop identified "plenty of reasons to be encouraged about ways that competition is working to deliver interoperable systems and services" but also found that "health IT markets are not functioning as efficiently as they could be."

The collaboration, they wrote, will address several concerns discussed during the FTC workshop, including a lack of comparability and transparency in the health IT market; a lack of interoperability in the health IT market; and business practices in the health IT market that obstruct the electronic sharing of health data.

"ONC and FTC are cooperating and sharing information to better understand market dynamics related to health IT. In consultation with FTC, ONC will formulate policies that advance patient care through competition and innovation. Government policy may be able to improve transparency, promote interoperability, create incentives for quality, and reduce barriers to competition and innovation," according to the blog post.

ONC also will continue to monitor business practices that could obstruct interoperability or competition, as well as sharing data with FTC and helping the agency investigate questionable business practices.

An FTC blog post, written by: Tara Koslov, deputy director of FTC's Office of Policy Planning; Markus Meier, assistant director of the healthcare division of FTC's Bureau of Competition; and David Schmidt, FTC's assistant director of applied research and outreach, confirmed the collaboration. "We are working with ONC staff to identify potential competition issues relating to health IT platforms and standards, market concentration, conduct by market participants, and the ability of health IT purchasers to make informed buying decisions."

FTC is benefitting from ONC's expertise, they wrote. "We already know that competition is central to improving healthcare quality and outcomes, reducing costs and improving the consumer experience. We and ONC agree that competition in health IT markets is equally important to drive quality and value in healthcare."