The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is at the forefront of the administration’s health IT efforts and is a resource to the entire health system to support the adoption of health information technology and the promotion of nationwide health information exchange to improve health care. ONC is organizationally located within the Office of the Secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Here is their latest news and communication.
HIT Policy Committee Meetings – June 30th, view the meeting notes and listen to the audio. The Health IT Policy Committee will make recommendations to the National Coordinator for Health IT on a policy framework for the development and adoption of a nationwide health information infrastructure, including standards for the exchange of patient medical information. How to Participate. The July meeting was cancelled, the August meeting is scheduled for 8/11/15.
HIT Standards Committee Meetings – June 24th, view the meeting notes and listen to the audio. The Health IT Standards Committee will make recommendations to the National Coordinator for Health IT on standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria for the electronic exchange and use of health information. How to Participate. The July meeting was cancelled, the August meeting is scheduled for 8/26/15.
Health IT Safety Webinar Series
When: July 30, 2015 from 1:00 – 2:30 pm ET
Register for this event.
This is the eighth webinar of a 10-part series on health IT and patient safety, “EHR Documentation and Health IT Safety.” This free webinar presents perspectives on electronic health record (EHR) documentation and its impact on health IT safety.
New Grant Opportunity
The Standards Development Organization Collaboration to Enhance Standards Alignment, Testing, and Measurement funding opportunity is available on Grants.gov. This new funding opportunity is to provide ongoing collaboration between ONC and various standards development organizations (SDOs) to provide support for standards and interoperability work that is of interest to ONC. Applications due by August 30th.
Direct Standard Testing Services To Continue
ONC is pleased to announce that Test EHR Program participants, Cerner Corporation, Epic, and iPatientCare, Inc. have agreed to continue to offer their Direct Transport Standard testing services to providers and implementers given the recent FAQ issued by CMS. The continued ability to test with these program participants will be made available shortly through ONC’s Standards Implementation and Testing Environment, which many of you know as SITE. ONC will evaluate this new approach to determine whether it could be expanded to include additional interoperability testing in the future. We wish to thank all of the providers and health IT developers that participated in the CMS Test EHR Program. Since its inception in January 2014, the NIST EHR Randomizer has matched more than 7000 providers using nearly 400 different certified electronic health record systems with CMS Designated Test EHRs to meet measure 3 of the Meaningful Use Stage 2 Summary of Care objective.
ONC Consumer Summit
Save the date! The 5th Annual Consumer Health IT Summit will be held Thursday, October 1, 2015, in Washington, DC. Mark your calendars and stay tuned, more details to come.