This blog was created to answer your questions about the nation’s transition to electronic health records and to create a conversation about the challenges and successes health care providers, physicians, practices, and organizations are experiencing as they transition from paper to electronic health records.
Learn more about HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)
Interoperability Steven Posnack, M.S., M.H.S. | October 2, 2018
In a blog post from earlier this week, we discussed the growing use of the Health Level 7 (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) standard. FHIR is just one tool in the toolbox helping improve the interoperability of health information, a goal of the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act).
We are excited to see the growing use of this standard – and the expectation that the U.S. is poised to catch FHIR in 2019.
Health Data, Interoperability Steven Posnack, M.S., M.H.S. | October 1, 2018
Recent blog posts from the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology highlight the importance of application programming interfaces (APIs) and how they fit into the 21st Century Cures Act’s (Cures Act) implementation. Today, new analysis shows that the United States (US) might be at a turning point when it comes to the adoption and implementation of the Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) standard in health information technology (health IT). To understand how we got to this point,
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Health IT ADM Brett P Giroir | September 18, 2018
Combatting the opioid crisis is a top priority for the Trump Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). We are making progress. Just last week we released the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) data, which showed significantly more people received treatment for substance use disorder in 2017 than in 2016; this was especially true for those with heroin-related opioid use disorders. In addition, the number of people who initiated use of heroin in 2017 was less than half of the number in 2016.
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Health IT Andrew Gettinger, M.D. | September 4, 2018
September is National Preparedness Month, which makes it the perfect time for clinicians and healthcare entities to consider what would happen if their health information technology (health IT) systems are unavailable or in some way compromised. This issue has become more important over time as healthcare is increasingly dependent on technology and a growing percentage of the workforce have never practiced without health IT and may not know what to do if their systems or information are unavailable.
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Privacy and Security of EHRs Kathryn Marchesini, J.D. | August 30, 2018
Twenty-two years ago this month, the U.S. Congress enacted the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The federal Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules implemented under HIPAA, and administered and enforced by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), continue to serve as the national foundation of protections for individually identifiable health information, and of individuals’ rights with respect to their information, including the right to see and obtain copies of their health information from their healthcare providers and health plans.
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