HHS Reveals Draft of 5-Year 'Strategic Health IT Plan'

2020-01-15 20:18

The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a draft of a five-year strategic health IT plan that is largely focused on providing patients with secure access to their health information as well as supporting secure, interoperable health information exchange among healthcare providers.

The 28-page draft document released Wednesday is "An outline for federal health information technology goals and objectives to ensure that individuals have access to their electronic health information to help enable them to manage their health and shop for care," says the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. "The draft federal strategic plan supports the provisions in the 21st Century Cures Act that will help to bring electronic health information into the hands of patients through smartphone applications," said Don Rucker, M.D., national coordinator for health IT. ONC is accepting public comment on the draft plan until March 18.

The factors that motivate the plan, ONC says, include: the evolution of healthcare technologies, such as mobile and web apps and medical devices; the movement toward improved access, exchange and use of electronic health information; the increasing reliance on interoperable health IT and electronic health information; and lessons learned from investments in health IT and its use.

"Further, government agencies, healthcare providers, health IT developers, researchers and other stakeholders need to work together to implement robust mechanisms for ensuring the privacy of health information as more and more data are generated and health IT becomes more interoperable."

"Individuals, healthcare providers, researchers and other stakeholders alike have significant concerns about the confidentiality and integrity of electronic health information that is created, transmitted, and stored using health IT," the draft states.

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