As our nation transitions to a digital healthcare system, our stakeholders are discovering new opportunities for using health information technology to advance health care delivery, public health, and research to improve people’s lives. The federal government is no exception in this regard; agencies across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are beginning to leverage the data and capabilities available through electronic health records for a broad range of federal activities and programs, including product safety and surveillance, real world data and real world evidence for regulatory approvals, research, pandemic response, and social service integration, to name just a few.
While this is an exciting development for HHS overall, it does call for more proactive alignment and coordination of health IT activities across the department to ensure that we are operating as efficiently and cohesively as possible. To that end, Secretary Becerra has put into place a department-wide management policy directing ONC to engage with HHS agencies to align and coordinate health IT-related activities in support of HHS health IT and interoperability goals. Specifically, the secretary has directed ONC to establish and oversee a consistent HHS-wide approach for: 1) incorporating standard health IT requirements language in all applicable HHS funding programs, contracts, and policies; and 2) providing direct ONC assistance to HHS agencies to maximize the use of HHS-approved standards and authorities (such as Section 3004 of the Public Health Service Act) in their agency programs…
