Initiatives

ONC’s Interoperability Measurement by Health IT Developers Project

Overview

 
 


How do you quantify the ability to exchange essential health information in an age where our personal health intimately influences our collective health? In 2020, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) launched a series of initiatives to study how healthcare stakeholders measure their ability to exchange and use information to drive improved health outcomes at the personal and population level while preserving existing investments.

The Interoperability Measurement by Health IT Developers Project examines how developers enable their customers to exchange and use information from outside sources, including HIE networks and APIs, in order to discover measures and methods that best support interoperability and improve outcomes on a national scale. The ONC seeks input to launch a collaborative pursuit of measures that will hold value for developers, their customers and the broader healthcare community.

To support this project, the ONC has provided funding to Clinovations Government + Health and HIMSS to engage health IT developers in both open-ended and semi-structured discussions designed to collect insights relevant to five concepts of interest:

  • Status of Interoperability Measurement
  • Factors That Support Measurement
  • Measure Development and Structure
  • Customer Implementation and Adoption
  • Opportunities for Measures of Value

The project team collects and analyzes capabilities that support measurement to identify several key components:

  • Novel and common practices used by developers
  • Potential future use cases and applications of measures
  • Data collected and tracked to monitor data exchange
  • Opportunities to align ONC’s measurement strategy with real-world capabilities

The team seeks to incorporate industry insights to develop an impactful and lasting national measurement framework, created in collaboration with health IT developers and their customers.

To participate in this innovative and meaningful initiative, or to learn more about how the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is supporting these efforts, please email us.