Health IT, Policy

ONC finalizes health IT interoperability roadmap

The final version is not all that different from a draft released in January, but there are a few changes. "There is a significant focus on near-term goals," Erica Galvez, ONC's interoperability manager, told reporters.

Clearly feeling the heat from Congress and other critics to achieve interoperability of health information sooner rather than later, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on Tuesday finalized its roadmap to the vision of easy, secure health information exchange.

The final version is not all that different from a draft released in January, but there are a few changes. “There is a significant focus on near-term goals,” Erica Galvez, ONC’s interoperability manager, told reporters during a conference call from Washington. That means achieving true, standards-based interoperability by 2017.

Also added were milestones for each topic area of the document so organizations can measure progress and stay on track. “It would be unreasonable” to ask stakeholders to memorize the roadmap, Galvez said.

The roadmap contains three sets of goals, over the near term, midterm and longer range, dovetailing with a 10-year vision spelled out a year ago:

  • 2015-17: Be capable of sending and receiving data to improve patient safety and care outcomes.
  • 2018-20: Expand the number and kinds of data sources and users in the interoperable health IT ecosystem, with an eye toward population health and cost reductions.
  • 2021-24: Reach true nationwide interoperability for a patient-centric, personalized “learning health system,” with continuous improvement in all three elements of the triple aim: safer care, better population health and lower cost.

To get there, private organizations as well as government agencies will have to agree to standards; DeSalvo repeated her assessment that vendors and providers are engaging in “information blocking” that is preventing interoperability.

Interoperability is a major component of the Obama administration’s healthcare reform strategy. National health IT coordinator Dr. Karen DeSalvo noted that this goes along with a previously announced decision to accelerate the shift to value-based payments under Medicare. “We’re going to need an information model to support it,” she said.

Indeed, DeSalvo said the roadmap goes beyond her office, to other federal agencies and the private sector. “This isn’t just ONC’s plan. This is the administration’s plan that we’ve been coordinating.”

DeSalvo also acknowledged that others are feeling antsy about the slow pace of health IT. “We have a strong sense of urgency,” she said. “We’re trying to move this as quickly as possible.”

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