Standards come about for many reasons. They make things more efficient, cost effective, and safer to name a few. Often you’ll hear witty banter in the standards community (I know…right!?) about whether something is “fit for purpose.” This is also accompanied by the question, “what’s your use case?”

MedStar Health Research Institute has been designing risk calculators that fit seamlessly into a physician’s workflow. Now publically available, and built with interoperability in mind, one of these risk calculators, The Mobilizing a Million Hearts app, is ready to be used by other providers and health care systems.

To learn more about the perspectives of key stakeholders, ONC has undertaken an effort to understand their needs, goals, and experiences using standards-based APIs and healthcare apps, which will be disseminated through a series of reports.

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published the final 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan (the Plan). The Plan outlines federal health information technology (health IT) goals and objectives, with a focus on individuals’ access to their electronic health information.

Responding to public health threats posed by the coronavirus pandemic, today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) released an interim final rule with comment period that extends the compliance dates and timeframes necessary to meet certain requirements related to information blocking and Conditions and Maintenance of Certification (CoC/MoC) requirements.