DeSalvo opens ONC's 2015 Annual Meeting

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The healthcare provider community is ready to see a return on their IT investment, said National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, kicking off the 2015 Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) Annual Meeting on Feb. 2.

DeSalvo reviewed the developments since last year’s meeting when she was new to the job and said that now that healthcare is moving off from the HITECH era, “it’s time to borrow from the past and from the present and look to the future.” ONC wants to be a better partner, she said, by understanding the realities on the ground and what health IT has meant for workflow in the clinical environment.

DeSalvo said ONC is learning from both success stories and challenges, citing the announcement of the potential for flexibility in upcoming rulemaking about Meaningful Use Stage 2 reporting. “We want a program that is straightforward, flexible and focused on outcomes and usability. This is an ongoing effort and I invite you to participate.”

2014 was spent finding a way to unlock data using pathways such as certification, privacy requirements, governance, standards and the right business and regulatory environment. Now, “we know it’s time to see the return on investment. The clock is ticking.”

The interoperability roadmap aims to meet that need by describing three broad pathways to address to get the industry to a learning healthcare system in 10 years. It starts with clear standards everyone can follow and build on iteratively. Next is motivating the use of those standards through appropriate incentives. Third is creating a trusted environment in which data are collected, shared and used.

“We are clear in our role in this document,” said DeSalvo. “We have an opportunity as the federal government to achieve interoperability.”

She also said achieving interoperability requires common understanding of what that means—a common clinical dataset to move with patients that is available for doctors when they need that information to save a life or make a clinical decision and can be used as fundamental building block for quality.

The Interoperability Standards Advisory is the first deliverable and ONC wants feedback, she said. “We want this to be the dictionary we can all begin to use.”

The push for pay-for-performance, just announced last week, is one motivator that can encourage behaviors in the marketplace to drive interoperability. “We’re calling on the private sector to come along. We’re calling on state governments to use their levers.”

DeSalvo said she wants everyone to be able to take full advantage of health IT “in a way that only the best care delivery models are right now. We want to bring everybody to that learning healthcare system.”