Premier Statement on ONC’s Blog Post Focused on Health Data and Interoperability

While it’s promising that many app developers appear to be coalescing around developing consumer apps using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) and standard in health information technology (health IT), we urge the administration to prioritize achieving a similar degree of development across provider facing applications. These applications will support providers with predictive analytics, clinical decision support and other workflow technologies.

A strict focus on consumer facing apps provides a limited view into the state of interoperability. It gives false hope of reaching the tipping point for unencumbered data exchange at the point of care and within the workflow in healthcare. The reality is that we are nowhere near reaching our goal of a data-enabled health system. We need an immediate focus not just on consumer-facing technologies, but on those relied on by the provider community as well. This is why we continue to press for the timely implementation of 21st Century Cures Act interoperability and data standards provisions, including the ability for third party applications and systems to send data to and receive data from EHRs.

Until all data is unlocked from EHRs and integrated into clinical workflows, we will continue to face walled gardens of vital information and limited innovation.