Big Data Will Transform Healthcare, Says ONC

Big data will revolutionize healthcare, says a new five-year strategic plan from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

The plan, released for public comment on March 25, says that clinical information captured from electronic health records in machine-readable format can be used to rapidly speed-up the creation and diffusion of medical knowledge--creating what ONC dubs a "learning health system."

"Through a learning health system, the right information will be available to support a given decision, whether it is about the efficacy of a treatment or medication for an individual patient, predicting a national pandemic, or deciding whether to proceed with the research and development for a potential new treatment," the plan states.

Today, only a quarter of physician offices and 15 percent of hospitals have EHR systems in place, according to ONC, but that number will likely increase as the Health and Human Services department distributes up to $27.4 billion in incentive funding to the private sector for EHR adoption over a decade. Medicare payments to providers will start to drop in 2015 unless providers demonstrate "meaningful use" of EHRs. So far, the department has paid out $37.57 million in EHR incentives, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.