In a letter addressed to National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, the American Hospital Association suggests the ONC prioritize certain goals to help make progress in health IT.
The ONC's Federal Health IT Strategic Plan outlines five goals: expand adoption of health IT, advance secure and interoperable health information, strengthen healthcare delivery, advance the health and well-being of individuals and communities and advance research, scientific knowledge and innovation.
The AHA wrote two objectives under the second goal (advance secure and interoperable health information) are foundational to fulfilling other goals and should be addressed first. These objectives are to enable individuals, providers and public health entities to securely send, receive, find and use electronic health information, and to identify, prioritize and advance technical standards to support secure and interoperable health information.
Additionally, the AHA urges ONC to continue making progress on correctly matching patients to their electronic records.
The AHA asks the ONC to provide more details on how federal health IT goals will be met, specific activities by agencies, expected timelines for completing activities and assessing if there are sufficient federal resources to achieve all outlined goals. The AHA also recommends the ONC establishes a website or other publicly accessible forum to "provide transparency" on the agency's progress.
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