ONC Assesses Achievements to date on Five Year Health IT Plan
Last week the ONC released a report detailing progress to date on the five year, Federal Health IT Strategic Plan. The June, 2013 report gives updates on various grant programs, ONC innovation challenges, regulatory policies and EHR certification and standards.
The Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2011 – 2015 describes the Federal government’s strategy to improve health care through the use of health IT.  This latest progress report gives highlights on the Plan’s strategic goals:
Goal 1: Achieve Adoption and Information Exchange through Meaningful Use of Health IT
Goal 2: Improve Care, Improve Population Health, and Reduce Health Care Costs through the Use of Health
IT
Goal 3: Inspire Confidence and Trust in Health IT
Goal 4: Empower Individuals with Health IT to Improve their Health and the Health Care System
Goal 5: Achieve Rapid Learning and Technology Advancement
Key highlights and milestones documented in the report include:
- As of April 2013, 74% of eligible professionals and 87% of eligible hospitals have registered to participate in the Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Program.
- ONC has released two CQM reporting tools available for anyone to use free of charge. Cypress is a tool that tests EHRs’ ability to calculate Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Program CQMs. PopHealth is a tool for providers and vendors to implement summary quality reporting.
- ONC launched the Health eDecisions initiative to build on research to develop CDS standards that will make CDS more interoperable, shareable, and scalable. The first standards set was submitted to Health Level 7 (HL7) for balloting in early 2013.
- In 2012, ONC, in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), implemented the ONC Health IT Certification Program as a companion to the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. The Certification Program provides a defined process for independent certifying bodies to test EHR technology and certify that qualified products follow defined criteria that meet Meaningful Use requirements.
- The Regional Extension Centers (RECs) RECs are partnered with over 31,000 medical practices and 133,000 primary care providers (PCPs), equating to 43% of the nation’s PCPs.
- ONC is charged with leading a nationwide effort to expand the adoption and use of the Blue Button, a symbol for easy, electronic access by consumers of their clinical or claims data. An estimated 88 million Americans have access to some of their clinical or claims data through Blue Button and there have been over 1.5 million Blue Button downloads.
- HHS published the final Health IT Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan in June 2013, which provides direction to public and private entities on actions to address health IT and patient safety.
Read or download the full report here.