Health IT Policy and Standards Committees Discuss Data Updates and Task Force Recommendations

PARCA eNews – Sept. 16, 2016 – On Tuesday, the Health IT Policy Committee and Standards Committee, Federal Advisory Committees to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), convened for a virtual joint meeting.

Vaishali Patel with ONC provided a data update on Hospital Adoption of Patient Engagement Functionalities based on results from a 2015 American Hospital Association Health IT Supplemental Survey. 

The presentation noted an almost seven-fold increase in hospital adoption of VDT capabilities since 2013 and significant annual increases in hospital adoption of other electronic patient engagement capabilities. Additionally, the percent of hospitals with VDT capability has spread nationwide between 2013 and 2015 although compared to larger health systems, critical access hospitals and small hospitals lag behind in adoption of VDT capabilities.

Jitin Asnaani and Anjum Kurshid, co-chairs of the Interoperability Task Force (IXTF), presented final IXTF recommendations to the committees. In the transmittal letter, the IXTF identified three prioritized findings:

1. Work is needed around clinical information reconciliation and curation to reduce the burden of clinical data import.
2. Incorporation of non-clinical data in needed so that it is useful to clinicians.
3. Work is needed to better understand how to deal with patient generated health data (PGHD), as interoperability includes PGHD (broader than non-clinical data above).

The next Joint Committee meeting will be an in-person meeting on Wed., Oct. 5, 2016.

Source: HiMSS News