The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) has released a guide to coordinate the government efforts toward creating an interoperable health IT infrastructure for the public and private sector.
The plan focuses efforts along two goals: patient-focused healthcare and population health. The first goal envisions a transformation to higher quality, more cost-efficient care, meeting patients’ needs through electronic health information access and use. The second goal, related to population health, envisions the use of electronic health information to benefit public health, biomedical research, quality improvement, and emergency preparedness.
Objectives, strategies, and milestones have been established for each goal, including the necessary steps to address privacy and security concerns, achieve an interoperable health IT architecture, accelerate IT adoption, and foster collaborative governance, according to ONCHIT.
