ONC issues national interoperability 'roadmap,' standards advisory

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology today released a draft national “roadmap” for achieving a health IT infrastructure that facilitates the secure exchange and use of electronic health information for a learning health care system. The document focuses on government and private-sector actions to enable a majority of individuals and providers across the care continuum to send, receive, find and use a common set of electronic clinical information at the nationwide level by the end of 2017. It also identifies subsequent actions to expand interoperability and use to achieve a nationwide learning health system by 2024. In addition, ONC released an interoperability standards advisory to facilitate dialog and consensus on the best available technical standards for core interoperability functions. ONC will accept comments on the roadmap through April 3 and the standards advisory through May 1. For more information, visit www.healthit.gov/interoperability.