What's Happening in Health IT

In This Issue

• New Webpage: Attacking the Opioid Crisis Head On with Health IT
• Webinar: The Patient Choice Technical Project Community Update
• Data Update: EHR Products Used for MU Attestation Public Use File
• Moving the Interoperability Needle?
• New Grant Opportunity from NSTIC in Support of Healthcare
• SAVE THE DATE: ONC 2016 Annual Meeting
• Federal Advisory Committee Schedule Apr. 4 – Apr. 8

New Webpage: Attacking the Opioid Crisis Head On with Health IT

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has developed a new webpage, which serves as a central point for the public to find more information on how health IT solutions are being used to address the opioid crisis. The page provides links to a variety of health IT solutions that address prescription drug misuse, abuse, and diversion. 

Webinar: The Patient Choice Technical Project Community Update

The Patient Choice Technical Project will be conducting a community update webinar on April 12th, 2016 from 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. ET. This project is working on harmonizing existing technical mechanisms to enable interoperable exchange of patient consent. The Patient Choice Technical Project recently completed basic choice use case development and is now launching the pilot phase of the project. The webinar will provide an overview of the use case documentation and an update on the overall progress of the project. Please join the webinar, or visit the Patient Choice Technical Project Homepage for more information.

Data Update: EHR Products Used for MU Attestation Public Use File

ONC updated the EHR Products Used for MU Attestation Public Use File with Medicare EHR Incentive Program data through January 2016. The PUF contains a time series of all eligible hospital and professional attestations through the Medicare EHR Incentive Program and the certified health IT products reported by those providers for each year. The dataset is available in open format with complete documentation and explanation of the data through the HealthIT.gov Dashboard. Download the data now!

Moving the Interoperability Needle?

Are you a leader in interoperability? Prove it! Help inspire others and share your success by adding your interoperability work to the ONC Interoperability Proving Ground (IPG).  The IPG is an open community source that is available to all to prove that communities and organizations are coming together to make nationwide interoperability happen. If you are working on interoperability, we encourage you to showcase your work by adding it to the IPG.

New Grant Opportunity from NSTIC in Support of Healthcare

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) has announced a new funding opportunity intended to help streamline patients and providers access to online health information by encouraging the deployment of federated identity credentials in healthcare.  ONC will partner and actively participate in the reviews; provide Health IT subject matter expertise and technical support for pilots.

With federated credentials, you can:

• Reduce operating costs and duplicative effort by providers
• Leverage existing identity proofing process and simplifies the issuing and management  of credentials
• Support Interoperability
• Increase convenience for patient engagement
• Provide consistent verified identity of providers and patients
• Strengthen authentication processes for healthcare
• Builds trust

Check out NSTIC’s Blog, Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) PDF, and a Link to the opportunity ongrants.gov. Stay tuned for an informational webinar Monday, April 18, 2016. More info to follow.

SAVE THE DATE: ONC 2016 Annual Meeting

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) is pleased to announce its sixth Annual Meeting will be held May 31 – June 2, 2016, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Join a wide array of public and private sector partners discussing ways to leverage health IT to achieve better care, smarter spending, and healthier people.

Check out the ONC 2016 Annual Meeting webpage for more details – including the agenda and registration – as they become available!

Federal Advisory Committee Schedule Apr. 4 – Apr. 8

Wednesday, April 6
1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET. The Joint: Interoperability Experience Task Force Meets. Learn more:
http://ow.ly/10bPNQ

 *All times are in Eastern Time unless otherwise noted