ONC has received $80 million to award grants for implementing or expanding training, certification and degree programs in public health informatics and data science at minority serving institutions (MSIs) in order to address some of the health and social inequities that became widely apparent during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. ONC will be releasing a notice of funding opportunity in late spring to early summer. Sign up for emails from ONC for the latest information.

To promote and support the consistent development and implementation of the Health Level Seven (HL7®) International® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources® (FHIR®) standard and associated implementation guides, ONC launched the Inferno testing suite a few years back. Inferno supports the ONC Health IT Certification Program through a set of streamlined tests for software services seeking to meet the requirements of the 2015 Edition Cures Update’s “Standardized API for Patient and Population Services certification criterion” and also includes a “community” aspect to it, which anyone working with FHIR implementation guides can use to collaborate with ONC to develop and contribute tests.

ONC has launched a new project called “Health Interoperability Outcomes 2030.” Later this fall, reflective of public feedback, we intend to publish a prioritized set of interoperability outcomes that align with ONC’s interoperability vision for the nation and the 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan. 

As we celebrate Women’s Health Week, we wanted to share some of the ways that ONC’s work directly impacts women of all ages, in every part of the country. 

The information blocking regulations at 45 CFR Part 171 began to apply to health care providers, health IT developers of certified health IT, health information exchanges, and health information networks on April 5, 2021, per ONC’s recent interim final rule. That makes now a good time to consider stakeholders’ views about practices that may constitute information blocking, including the extent to which they exist.