Health Interoperability Outcomes 2030 Initiative Announced by ONC

The launch of its Health Interoperability Outcomes 2030 initiative was announced by The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in the United States. It aims to build on existing interoperability initiatives and develop longer-term strategies. Deputy National Coordinator Steve Posnack, said in the announcement, “Throughout my tenure at ONC, different policy, technology, and legislative moments along with ample public feedback have shaped our actions. Yet, there always comes a time to ask, ‘What’s next? What are we driving toward? How do we turn actions into outcomes?’ Now’s that time.”

As Posnack pointed out, the ONC’s activities have been influenced by a range of policies over the last decade, the most recent of which was the 21st Century Cures Act of 2016, which shaped information blocking and interoperability regulations that went into force this April. The new initiative, dubbed “Health Interoperability Outcomes 2030,” will provide a prioritised collection of interoperability outcomes that fit with the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan for the years 2020-2025 and ONC’s national vision.

According to Posnack, 2030 should be treated as a deadline rather than a target date. To put it another way, some results should be predicted before the end of the year. For providers that are still trying to comply with the regulations that just went into effect, looking forward to 2030 may seem overwhelming.

According to a new study from KLAS that surveyed a small sample of health system executives, while the majority of respondents felt prepared for enforcement, 12% said they were not. The study came after a survey earlier this month showed that many stakeholders in the healthcare industry were still perplexed by federal data-blocking laws, even after the deadline had passed.