“Although the state of the pandemic has been looking better in the United States recently, National Coordinator for Health IT Micky Tripathi says we’re not out of the woods yet.”
“But technology can help ensure a more seamless response moving forward, he said.”
“One job for inter-agency task forces, he noted, will be considering: ‘What are the challenges we experienced in the pandemic? What are those gaps, and how do we characterize them, and what does that say about the investments we should make in the future?'”
“During a presentation at the DirectTrust Summit 2021 this week, Tripathi recognized the leaps and bounds the country has achieved when it comes to data-sharing and interoperability and outlined the goals his agency has for keeping up the momentum.”
“‘We’ve really in a very short time – but with a lot of money and a lot of blood, sweat and tears – we’ve gotten that foundation laid’ for modernizing the country’s health system, he said.”
“Now, ‘we need to figure out what we want to do with the foundation,’ he said.”
“One overarching goal will be to make infrastructure available to serve users’ immediate needs.”
“‘How does that foundation – the basic health IT systems, interoperability capabilities, the ability to have apps – all of that together, how do we sort of think about that as the portfolio we want to build on?’ he said.”
“‘So that users at the end of the day have a full awareness of the kinds of capabilities that are available to them – so their first instinct isn’t to say, ‘Let me just fax that, it’s a lot easier,'” Tripathi laughed…” Read the full article here.
Source: More outreach on info blocking compliance high on ONC’s to-do list – By Kat Jercich, June 9, 2021. Healthcare IT News.
