What’s Happening at the ONC – 12-21-2018

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Posted By: Roberta Mullin December 21, 2018

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 what they are doing and reporting. Follow them @ONC_HealthIT. Sign up for their email updates.

News

New Data Brief: Methods Used to Enable Interoperability among U.S. Non-Federal Acute Care Hospitals in 2017
ONC released new data on the methods hospitals used to exchange summary of care records in 2017. A majority of hospitals used more than one electronic method to routinely send (78%) and receive (61%) summary of care records with outside organizations. Health information service providers (HISPs) were the most commonly used electronic method for routinely sending or receiving summary of care records.

Check out the newly released API Documentation Data
ONC recently analyzed the availability of the Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) standard across EHRs currently used by hospitals and office-based practices nationwide. Building on this, ONC released the API Documentation Data that details the API syntax and authorization standard used for all 2015 Edition certified APIs based on a review of a developer’s API documentation. The data will be regularly updated so check the CHPL often for the latest updates.

Comment Today: Draft Strategy to Reduce Health IT Burden
ONC issued a draft Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs. The draft addresses concerns shared by clinicians and other stakeholders that EHR burden can negatively affect provider satisfaction and ultimately the care delivery experience. The document is available for public comment until 11:59 pm ET on January 28, 2019.

Easy EHR Issue Reporting Challenge – Winners Announcement
ONC announced three winners of the Easy EHR Issue Reporting Challenge. The challenge called on developers to create new software applications that can help clinicians report EHR usability and safety issues faster, more efficiently, and in alignment with their regular workflow.

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Events

Health IT Advisory Committee Upcoming Meetings
The next Health IT Advisory Committee meeting will be held January 23, 2019.

Highlights from the 2018 ONC Annual Meeting

Spotlighting Interoperability Proving Ground Programs

The Interoperability Proving Ground (IPG) Spotlight project of the week is Netsmart. Through this pilot project, Netsmart expects to connect home health agencies to their partnering hospital systems in an effort to document order forms and send and receive referrals.

Learn how your interoperability project can be featured as an IPG Spotlight by visiting the Interoperability Proving Ground (IPG). Once a project is submitted or updated, projects will automatically be added to the feature queue to be randomly selected as a featured project.

ONC Interoperability Pledge

Companies that provide 90 percent of electronic health records used by hospitals nationwide as well as the top five largest health care systems in the country have agreed to implement three core commitments: Consumer Access, No Blocking/Ensuring Transparency, and Standards. The ONC (@ONC_HealthIT) wants vendors to sign a pledge. Is your vendor pledging? Find out who is on the list.