ONC Releases Nationwide Interoperability Health IT Infrastructure Plan

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

A new paper released by the ONC outlines its 10-year vision for achieving interoperability.

A new paper released by the ONC asserts that it will develop an interoperability roadmap as articulated in HHS Principles and Strategy for Accelerating Health Information Exchange. Working collaboratively with all stakeholders, ONC pledges to fine-tune and use the health IT infrastructure enabled through implementation of the HITECH Act to support transformation of health care to a more patient-centered, less wasteful, and higher quality system.

In a blog post, Karen DeSalvo, National Coordinator for Health IT, announced the release of the paper titled “Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A 10-Year Vision to Achieve an Interoperable Health IT Infrastructure,” writing it describes ONC’s broad vision and framework for interoperability. Further, DeSalvo says it serves as an invitation to health IT stakeholders, including clinicians, consumers, hospitals, public health, technology developers, payers, researchers, policymakers, and many others, to join ONC in creating a defined, shared roadmap that can provide direction for collective health IT interoperability as a core foundational element of better care, at a lower cost and better health for all.

The paper reveals the agency will help guide the healthcare system towards an integrated interoperability evenly and efficiently. The goal is to develop an agenda with five critical building blocks for a nationwide interoperable health IT infrastructure:

• 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

These building blocks are symbiotic, and progress must be made across all five blocks gradually over the next ten years in order to fulfill the interoperability goals.

ONC will create use cases and goals for three, six and 10-year timeframes that will guide work in each of the building blocks, including alignment and coordination of prioritized federal, state, tribal, local, and private sector actions. DeSalvo emphasizes that now is the time to renew our focus on an interoperable health IT infrastructure, which includes the following key characteristics:

• allows individuals and care providers to securely search, retrieve, send, and receive essential, electronic health information
• has a sustainable, equitable governance structure that is flexible and resilient
• supports novel data sharing and analysis, including patient-generated data and data from other sources beyond the health care delivery system
• reflects many of the values and concepts in the JASON report, “A Robust Health Information Technology Infrastructure”