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Learn more about HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)
Interoperability Acute Care Hospitals Are More Interoperable Than Ever but Challenges Remain
Don Rucker M.D. | October 25, 2018
Today, nearly all non-federal acute care hospitals have adopted certified health IT. New data show that this momentum continues with the introduction of the 2015 Edition Health IT Certification Criteria (2015 Edition), which includes new technical capabilities (such as application programming interfaces) that were not required as part of the prior 2014 Edition. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) analysis of 2017 data from the American Hospital Association’s Information Technology Supplement Survey reveals that 93 percent of non-federal acute care hospitals have already upgraded to the 2015 Edition or plan to upgrade.
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Interoperability ONC is FHIR’d up: Unwrapping the new Inferno Testing Suite
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 Heat Wave: The U.S. is Poised to Catch FHIR in 2019
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 Using Telemedicine to Combat the Opioid Epidemic
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 Disaster Planning Your 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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