Providers Skeptical Interoperability Roadmap Will Succeed

Less than one in five (17 percent) providers are confident that the healthcare industry will meet the 10-year goal for nationwide interoperability set by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.


Less than one in five (17 percent) providers are confident that the healthcare industry will meet the 10-year goal for nationwide interoperability set by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

That’s the finding of a new survey of more than 700 providers conducted by document management vendor Scrypt, Inc.

In late January, ONC released its draft nationwide Interoperability Roadmap providing a broad vision and framework to develop a pathway to interoperable health IT with associated goals for three-, six-, and 10-year timeframes. The ultimate goal is to create a learning health system by 2024. 

However, providers have expressed concerns that the changes required for national health IT interoperability will require more involvement of industry and less direct oversight from the federal government.

Also See: Industry Comments on Interoperability Roadmap Run the Gamut

At Tuesday’s Health IT Policy Committee, ONC presented a draft interoperability measurement framework as part of the agency’s Interoperability Roadmap.

“As we go along this journey, measuring progress is critical to understanding where we are today and the extent to which we’re achieving our goals,” Vaishali Patel, a senior ONC advisor, told the committee.

According to Patel, the scope of near-term (2015-2017) interoperability measurement will include movement of health information across the care continuum and individuals, barriers impeding interoperability, and increasing availability of information and subsequent usage.

“At the three-year horizon, being able to send, receive, find and use critical information along the care continuum and by individuals is critical. So, that’s one key milestone that we want to achieve and that’s how we are focusing our measurement,” she said. “Within the six-year horizon, the goals focus on assessing the impacts in terms of improving healthcare quality and costs and also expanding our focus beyond the care continuum to non-healthcare settings. And, then the 10-year horizon is focused on supporting the learning health system.” 

Patel acknowledged that there will be “roadblocks that we’re sure to encounter” and that ONC’s Interoperability Roadmap will be refined to understand why goals are not being met and to try to address those barriers. She said the agency’s roadmap, which includes input from the private sector, will be published later this year.

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