In August 2022 the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) launched the 2022 Public Health Data Systems Task Force as a subcommittee of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC). The task force will meet through the beginning of November to present recommendations continuing and building upon the work of the 2021 task force. Members of the task force include individuals from various levels of government, relevant public health associations, and industry partners. Specifically, the task force is focused on the certification criteria for EHR products certified under the ONC Health IT Certification Program that cover transmission of data from EHRs to public health in these domains...
As part of the ONC Health IT Certification Program, Congress mandated the establishment of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) Reporting Program to help determine the effectiveness of the program. The first step toward implementation was the development of an initial set of CEHRT developer metrics which were released in draft form in December 2021. When finalized, these metrics will represent data that EHR vendors will have to report to ONC as a Condition and Maintenance of Certification. The initial focus of the metrics developed was interoperability, and public health was one of four categories considered.