ONC report highlights issues hindering hospitals’ public health reporting

A report released this month by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is shining a spotlight on challenges encountered by hospitals related to their public health reporting. According to the report, in 2019, seven in 10 hospitals reported encountering one or more challenges in their electronic reporting to public health agencies, the most common of which were issues with a lack of capacity to electronically exchange information and interface-related issues. Furthermore, for 2018 and 2019, half of all hospitals reported a lack of capacity for electronic data exchange with public health agencies, with different vocabulary standards emerging as a significant additional concern. ONC said such issues were particularly evident among small, rural, independent, and critical access hospitals. ONC for this report relied on data culled from the information technology supplement to AHA’s Annual Survey, the collection of which the agency helped fund.