ONC Releases Interoperability Standards Advisory Reference 2019
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has released the 2019 Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) Reference Edition, which serves as a “snapshot” view of the ISA.
The 2019 Interoperability Standards Advisory represents ONC’s current assessment of the heath IT standards landscape. According to ONC, this static version of the ISA won’t change throughout the year, while the web version is updated on a regular basis. The ISA contains numerous standards and implementation specifications to meet interoperability needs in healthcare and serves as an open and transparent resource for the industry.
The Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) process represents the model by which ONC coordinates the identification, assessment, and public awareness of interoperability standards and implementation specifications that can be used by the healthcare industry to address specific interoperability needs including, but not limited to, interoperability for clinical, public health, research and administrative purposes. ONC encourages all stakeholders to implement and use the standards and implementation specifications identified in the ISA as applicable to the specific interoperability needs they seek to address. Furthermore, ONC encourages further pilot testing and industry experience to be sought with respect to standards and implementation specifications identified as “emerging” in the ISA.
The newest ISA reference edition includes improvements made based on comments provided by industry stakeholder during the public comment period, which ended Oct. 1, according to a blog post written by Steven Posnack, executive director of ONC’s Office of Technology, Chris Muir, standards division director, Office of Technology, and Brett Andriesen, ONC project officer. ONC received 74 comments on the ISA this year, resulting in nearly 400 individual recommendations for revisions.
According to the blog post, the ISA contains “a variety of standards and implementation specifications curated by developers, standards gurus, and other stakeholders to meet interoperability needs (a term we use in the ISA to represent the purpose for use of standards or implementation specifications – similar to a use case) in healthcare.”
“The ISA itself is a dynamic document and is updated throughout the year, reflecting a number of substantive and structural updates based on ongoing dialogue, discussion, and feedback,” Posnack, Muir and Andriesen wrote.
The latest changes to the reference manual include RSS feed functionality to enable users to track ISA revisions in real-time; shifting structure from lettered sub-sections to a simple alphabetized list; and revising many of the interoperability need titles to better reflect their uses and align with overall ISA bets practices. According to the ONC blog post, the updates also include several new interoperability needs, including representing relationship between patient and another person; several electronic prescribing-related interoperability needs, such as prescribing weight-based dosing and request for refills; and operating rules for claims, enrollment and premium payments.
The latest changes also include more granular updates such as added standards, updated characteristics and additional information about interoperability needs.
The ONC officials wrote that the ISA should be considered as an open and transparent resource for industry and reflects the latest thinking around standards development with an eye toward nationwide interoperability.
The ISA traditionally has reflected recommendations from the Health IT Advisory Committee and its predecessors the HIT Policy Committee and HIT Standards Committee and includes an educational section that helps decode key interoperability terminology.