What’s Happening at the ONC – 8-24-2018

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Posted By: Roberta Mullin August 24, 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

Health IT Advisory Committee Upcoming Meetings
The next Health IT Advisory Committee meeting will be held September 5, 2018.

ONC Donald Rucker Keynotes at SHIEC Annual Conference
Mark Hagland from Healthcare Informatics pens summary of Rucker’s “Reshaping U.S. Healthcare: A Progress Report on Improving Interoperability and Usability of Clinical Information” speech, calling it cautious.

Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) – Open for Review and Comment
The Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) annual review and comment period has started. The ISA is an interactive catalog of standards and implementation specifications supporting interoperability in healthcare, and stakeholder input is crucial to ensure it contains the latest and most accurate industry information. Share your thoughts by commenting by October 1, when work begins to finalize the ISA for the 2019 Reference Edition, published later this year. Learn more about the ISA and comment period by reading “Interoperability Standards Advisory: Annual Request for Comments”.

Save The Date: ONC’s 2018 Annual Meeting
Mark your calendars! ONC’s 2018 Annual Meeting will be held November 29th and 30th in Washington, DC. The agenda will extend the many discussions and topics from our Interoperability Forum, and will feature the ongoing work by the private and public sectors to promote health IT interoperability and usability. ONC will share more information about the agenda, location, and hotel reservations in the coming weeks.

CHPL Data Challenge
ONC is launching the Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) Data Challenge to develop a software application that makes use of the data in the CHPL application programming interfaces (API) or XML files. The proposed applications should support the healthcare and health IT communities’ use and understanding of certified health IT. A total of $40,000 in prizes will be available for award. Learn more about this challenge by reading the blog post, Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) Data Challenge. Submission Deadline: October 31, 2018

ONC and NIST Transitions eRx Testing Tool to NCPDP
In 2017, ONC announced a 5-year goal to transition the ONC Health IT Certification Program’s testing portfolio to as many industry-developed and maintained testing tools as envisioned by the 21st Century Cures Act. Today, the ONC Health IT Certification Program’s approved electronic prescribing (eRx) testing tool and associated support and documentation transitioned from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) ePrescribing Test Suite to the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP). Learn more about the transition by reading: A New Home for the Electronic Prescribing Testing Tool.

Spotlighting Interoperability Proving Ground Programs

The Interoperability Proving Ground (IPG) Spotlight project of the week is from ADVault. The MyDirectives.com Patient Generated Health Data Registry Project generates clinical document architectures (CDAs) for personal advance care plan documents. During a 2017 HL7 FHIR Connect-a-thon, ADVault demonstrated their successful implementation of HL7 standards in communication of patient-generated health data between patients and providers. The next steps of this project are to store and deliver patient-generated health data into the electronic health record.

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.