HIT Policy Committee approves interoperability roadmap recommendations

The Office of the National Coordinator's Health IT Policy Committee (HITPC) endorsed the recommendations of its Interoperability and Health Information Exchange Workgroup regarding the agency's proposed interoperability roadmap.

At a meeting last week, the committee accepted the following recommendations for the roadmap:

  • Endorse and map to the JASON Task force recommendations, such as coordinated architecture and public APIs
  • Identify specific marketing and motivating actions that the federal government should take to promote interoperability, such as incentive and operational alignment and "authoritative ongoing guidance"
  • Define measures of interoperability status and progress, with each milestone tied to a measure
  • Set the context for interoperability as prescriptive
  • Map actions to actors, to coordinate activity and avoid duplication of efforts

The JASON task force has previously recommended that parallel architecture was needed for interoperability and that Stage 3 of Meaningful Use be focused on interoperability. ONC has made data sharing a top priority going forward by not only creating the 10 year roadmap to interoperability, but also pushing interoperability a top priority in its new five year strategic plan.

Congress has also taken new interest in EHR interoperability, calling on ONC in its recently passed appropriations bill to require interoperability in the products it certifies and de-certifying those that can't share data adequately. Congress also asked ONC to produce a report on providers and vendors that block information sharing and asked HITPC to submit a report within the next 12 months on the challenges and barriers to interoperability.

To learn more:
- access the meeting and materials