AHA recommends ONC refine, prioritize goals in health IT strategic plan

AHA today encouraged the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to refine its draft strategic plan for health information technology to clarify and prioritize federal roles and activities. “Clearly, the broad goals outlined in the strategic plan are important for the nation,” wrote Linda Fishman, senior vice president of public policy analysis and development. “However, from the perspective of limited federal resources to make progress in the area of health IT, the AHA believes that some goals should be prioritized over others.” These include the prerequisite goals of enabling individuals, providers and public health entities to securely send, receive, find and use electronic health information; and identifying, prioritizing and advancing technical standards to support interoperability, AHA said. Achieving those goals also will require the federal government to make progress on solving the problem of correctly matching patients to their records, the letter notes. In addition, AHA urged ONC to describe how goals will be met, including specific activities and completion timelines by agency, and whether existing federal resources are sufficient to accomplish them. The letter also recommends that ONC create a website or other publically accessible forum to provide transparency on agency progress in executing the plan.