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Learn more about HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)
Interoperability Does ONC’s Certification Program Affect Interoperability? New Evidence and Implications
Talisha Searcy | July 20, 2021
ONC is excited to share findings from newly published research that sheds light on the impact adoption of 2015 Edition certified health information technology (health IT) has had on hospitals’ rates of interoperability. In a recently published Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association article called Impact of the 2015 Health Information Technology Certification Edition on Interoperability among Hospitals, we examined how variation in the adoption of 2015 Edition certified health IT impacted key measures of interoperable exchange.
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Health IT Certification A New Window into How Certified Health IT Is Being Used
Michael Wittie | July 15, 2021
In section 3009A of the 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 (Cures Act), Congress created the “Electronic Health Record Reporting Program” and required health IT developers participating in the ONC Health IT Certification Program to publicly report certain information about their certified health IT products consistent with a new “condition of maintaining certification.” The goal of this program is to bolster market competitiveness by making publicly available comparative information on the capabilities and uses of certified EHR systems.
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Health IT TEFCA Will be Live in 2022
Micky Tripathi | July 13, 2021
Today we are pleased to announce the timeline for the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA). The 21st Century Cures Act, signed by President Obama in 2016, calls on ONC to “develop or support a trusted exchange framework, including a common agreement among health information networks nationally.”
In August 2019, ONC awarded a cooperative agreement to The Sequoia Project to serve as the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) to administer a new nationwide network based on the Common Agreement.
Health IT Public Health Data Systems Hearing: Ensuring a Data-Driven Response to COVID-19
Aaron Miri, MBA, FCHIME, FHIMSS, CHCIO | July 1, 2021
As part of HHS’s response to President Biden’s Executive Order on Ensuring a Data-Driven Response to COVID-19 and Future High-Consequence Public Health Threats, ONC’s Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC) recently held an expert panel hearing to understand the performance of public health data systems during the COVID-19 pandemic response and other gap areas in current infrastructure.
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Interoperability Health Affairs Article Points to HIO Readiness & Engagement in TEFCA
Vaishali Patel | June 22, 2021
The best way to gather information is by going straight to the source. That’s exactly what ONC did to learn and assess the state of health information entities, also known as health information exchange organizations (HIOs), across the country. A recent survey conducted by Dr. Julia Adler-Milstein of University of California San Francisco (USCF), with ONC support, is the sixth national HIO survey of its kind. This instrument placed a particular emphasis on the proposed Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA).
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