“As COVID-19 continues to underscore the need for an enhanced health interoperability infrastructure, a panel of past health IT coordinators and the current ONC leader discussed the future of public health data exchange at HL7’s 35th Annual Plenary.”
“Micky Tripathi, PhD, MPP, ONC national coordinator for health IT, noted that COVID-19 highlighted the need for an enhanced public health data interoperability infrastructure.”
“’We don’t yet have ubiquitously available participation in nationwide networks for public health in the middle of a pandemic,’ Tripathi said. ‘You have public health struggling to get access to Continuity of Care Document (CCD)-like information.'”
“Tripathi noted that the clinical ecosystem and the public health ecosystem are really parts of the same system, so public health should not be based on one-way static reporting mechanisms. Instead, there should be infrastructure that allows push and pull of data between clinical settings and public health agencies.”
“Public health falls under the jurisdiction of states. That’s a common refrain from the EHR vendor community, of often complain that the ONC EHR certification program and meaningful use program certify the ‘pitchers,’ but not the ‘catchers,’ Tripathi explained.”
“’EHR systems are certified to send out data in a certain way, and then they have to go through different negotiations with public health agencies on how they want to receive it,’ he explained. ‘So now, suddenly you’ve undermined the certification and the pitchers that we have.'”
“However, Tripathi noted that ONC and CDC are looking for ways to make public health data exchange more standardized.”
“’The CDC is looking at is the possibility of saying we should consider certification of the systems that are deployed by those who receive CDC funds,’ Tripathi said…” Read the full article here.
Source: Assessing the Future of Public Health Data Exchange, Interoperability – By Hannah Nelson, September 28, 2021. EHR Intelligence.
