The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) are creating a collaborative environment that will aim to improve health IT and care coordination in the pre-hospital environment.
The ONC announced the new campaign in a blog post this week. The first effort came about when the ASPR's Emergency Care Coordination Center hosted an event in February in conjunction with the ONC on what an interoperable emergency care system would look like. Both stakeholders from the emergency medical services (EMS) and health IT sides shared experiences and successes on integrating EMS into the healthcare system.
The two sides pitched various ideas, potential business use cases and pilot projects for the future. This led to the ASPR Collaboration Community campaign, which is being hosted at www.phegov.ideascale.com. In this collaborative environment, ideas are posted in a forum setting between stakeholders from both sides.
"It’s our hope that EMS will become a full participant in the electronic exchange of health information. This would entail the regular and secure two-way exchange between EMS and other health care facilities and payers," Tara Holland and Kevin Horahan from the ONC wrote in the blog post. "Improving the current system will lead to more efficient transitions of care, integration of EMS into the health care system, and better patient outcomes and experiences. It will also improve resilience in the face of disasters and other disruptions of our healthcare system."
