AHA urges ONC to further detail criteria for interoperability standards advisory

The AHA today urged the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to provide greater detail about the characteristics and metrics used to assess the standards identified as the “best available” in the draft Interoperability Standards Advisory. Supplementing the six characteristics the advisory uses to assess the standards’ readiness with detailed information on the use of the standards in a real world environment “will indicate how each standard was evaluated and achieved the designation,” wrote Ashley Thompson, AHA vice president and acting senior executive for policy. In addition, AHA recommends ONC publish all testing results that show how the standards support the use cases referenced in the advisory, and increase educational support to providers on these standards. “ONC may apply the designation of ‘best available’ to standards, but whether the standards work will only be proven through successful use in the provision of clinical care,” AHA said.