This Week's News on HealthIT.gov

This Week's News on HealthIT.gov

Standards & Interoperability Training

Welcome to March! We are still plugging away here at ONC, delivering added value to you on healthIT.gov through a variety of training modules, the latest of which is a new resource on Interoperability Basics.
The new training helps explain the process of meeting Stage 2 Meaningful Use data exchange requirements. More information can be found on the Standards & Interoperability page on HealthIT.gov and you can read more from Lee Stevens, ONC’s policy director of HIE. 
Lee explains in the latest blog post that this is the first of five modules ONC will release to help inform the process of meeting the Meaningful Stage 2 interoperability data exchange requirements. 

Infographic

We can try and explain some of the great things that health information technology is doing for doctors and patients around the country, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. OK, it’s an infographic, not a picture, but you get the idea, so just check out our new infographic at healthIT.gov!
Using Health IT to Combat Prescription Drug Abuse
Today, ONC released seven white papers stemming from the “The Enhancing Access to Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs using Health Information Technology” pilot project.   Visit the "Linking PDMPs to Health IT" page on HealthIT.gov to view these white papers and find out more about this innovative project.

Community Health Centers Data Brief

By ensuring access to care for underserved communities and populations across the nation, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are on the front lines of delivering health care. Health centers are adopting health information technology – often with support from Regional Extension Centers – to improve the quality of care.
ONC released a data brief earlier this week that describes the role of Regional Extension Centers in assisting health centers on the journey to adopting and meaningfully using health information technology.
Read the data brief on healthIT.gov and follow us on Twitter at ONC_HealthIT.

Tactical Issue Briefs

For the wonks among us, ONC published a few new issues briefs this week about Health Information Organization development of risk stratification and risk scores in an effort "to proactively manage the care of patients with the highest needs."

 The two other new briefs cover support for prescription drug monitoring programs and an explanation of how high utilizer reporting can help cut hospital readmissions.

HIE Governance
The HIE Governance Webpage was updated to include information about the launch of the National HIE Governance Forum. The Forum was announced by the National e-health Collaborative, our grantee, last week. The forum will bring together entities that are currently serving in governance roles for specific groups of exchange partners at the national, state, or regional level. Learn more about the forum in Jodi Daniel's blog.

New HITPC and HITSC Members

ONC today announced the retuning and new members of the Health IT Policy and Standards Committees. You can find the list of new members in the release.
We have put together a number of frequently asked questions if you are interested in applying.