ONC Aims To Crack Barriers That Slow HIE In 2013

At the dawn of 2013, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT will launch a number of activities that aim to unleash growth in health information exchange and establish rules of the road in coordination with other governance groups.

ONC has announced a funding opportunity to help it collaborate with organizations already involved in governance activities for health information exchange to increase interoperability, decrease the cost and complexity of sharing patient data, and assure privacy and security.

The cooperative agreement will enable ONC to work with others that have good governing efforts underway to encourage the continued development and adoption of policies, interoperability requirements, and business practices that will make nationwide health information exchange easier to perform and, in doing so, proliferate, according to Farzad Mostashari, MD, the national health IT coordinator.