ONC Addresses Health IT Infrastructure Challenges in New Agenda

Innovative research and scientific breakthroughs may remain stagnant due to difficulties with health IT infrastructure and the lack of quality data, but ONC articulates ways to address these challenges in its new policy and development agenda.  A new blog post written by the National Coordinator Don Rucker, MD, and ONC staffers Teresa Zayas Caban, Kevin Chaney, MGS, highlighted the efforts ONC is making to advance the nation’s health IT infrastructure to specifically achieve two goals: leveraging high-quality electronic health data for research and advanced health IT infrastructure to support research. ONC developed the goals following a review of relevant literature and programs, key interviews, and a workshop to pinpoint electronic health and health IT infrastructure gaps. Attendees of the workshop included representatives from federal agencies, technology vendors, researchers, and other stakeholders. The updated Federal Health IT Strategic Plan touched on two specific goals to modernize our nation’s health IT infrastructure and re-enable research and breakthroughs. The first goal was to leverage high-quality electronic health data for research and the second goal was to advance health IT infrastructure to support research.