The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology needs your help. In a new post on the Health IT Buzz Blog, Steven Posnack, director of the Office of Standards and Technology, asks stakeholders to weigh in on ONC’s new Proposed Interoperability Standards Measurement Framework.
Posnack begins the post by underscoring the significance of standards in people’s everyday lives. He notes, though, that especially in a health IT context, standards aren’t always the best solution to a problem. “However, experience has shown that just because technology includes ‘standardized’ capabilities they are not necessarily used to their fullest extent nor are they always implemented in a ‘standardized’ manner,” he wrote.
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Though the Interoperability Standards Advisory provides a bit of guidance on standards measurement, Posnack claims that “quantifiable data regarding [standards’] implementation is not readily available or regularly tracked.”
To thereby meet this need, ONC has opened a comment period for the Proposed Interoperability Standards Measurement Framework, which evaluates the implementation and use of interoperability standards. It includes two primary objectives.
The first objective, implementation of standards in a health IT product, zooms in on comprehending a standard’s lifecycle, which includes “the processes by which standards are developed, implemented, and then subsequently used.” The first objective also includes an understanding of how standards move from a developer’s product plan to being part of a product available to end users.
The second objective is the use of standards by end users to meet specific interoperability needs. This involves understanding which standards end users are actually using. “The focus on use will allow the identification of instances where a deployed standard is not being used by end users,” the framework states.
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ONC encourages everyone from providers to developers to medical associations to give feedback on these proposed standards. “Your input is critical,” Posnack wrote.
When providing feedback, these stakeholders should consider what gaps exist in the proposed framework and whether a voluntary, industry-based reporting system is the best way to implement the framework. Additionally, stakeholders should ask themselves if any other mechanisms to reporting on the measurement framework should be considered.
The public comment period is open until 5 p.m. ET on July 31, 2017.
“Ultimately, a finalized measurement framework would enable aggregate, industry-wide statistics that could be used as a resource by all stakeholders to inform business decisions, enrich policy deliberations, and enhance the accuracy of the guidance provided by the ISA,” Posnack wrote in the blog post.
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