Government agencies and health plans are taking small steps toward collaboration on projects to help healthcare providers achieve "meaningful use" of EMRs, including post-market surveillance of vaccines and monitoring treatments and outcomes, according to a panel of experts who spoke Friday at the Brookings Institute in Washington. "There's a lot of activity around being able to feed those governed, patient-owned data with information from the clinical system," said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, senior advisor for policy and programs in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. "There is more that we can do on that basis, but we also have to think about more the other way," Mostashari explained. "How can we push patient observations and patient data in a way that is accessible to and influences clinical care? There are workflow problems with this, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try." FierceGovernmentIT