As we continue to learn more about all of the factors that affect our health, where we live has proven to become more insightful over time. Our ability to study and measure health impacts, conduct public health monitoring across communities, deliver medications safely to patients, and a number of other efforts rely on the availability and accuracy of patient address data. Clinicians, researchers, and public health professionals must also have the ability to successfully link disparate records,

As the world responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to see how digital health plays a vital role in care delivery. ONC recognizes the importance of advancing digital health at domestic and global levels. As discussed in a previous blog post, part of ONC’s global engagement includes representing the United States in the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP). The GDHP currently runs five work streams: Interoperability, Clinical and Consumer Engagement,

Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed modifications to its Promoting Interoperability Program that, if finalized, would require hospitals to report on four public health and clinical data exchange measures. This proposal is the latest in a series of coordinated steps taken across HHS to leverage data standards and specifications adopted as part of ONC’s Health IT Certification Program to enable nationwide public health reporting.

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,