CHIME APPLAUDS ONC’S EFFORTS TO BRING COORDINATION TO GOVERNMENT STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
ONC’s USCDI+ initiative brings welcome coordination to the process of developing electronic health records standards across the federal government, reducing burden on the health IT community
Ann Arbor, MI, Oct. 8, 2021 – The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) strongly supports the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) on its announcement of the United States Core Dataset for Interoperability Plus (USCDI+) initiative as it works to coordinate the standards development and enforcement process across the federal government and improve public health reporting, quality measurement and other use cases.
Health IT actors across the health system face an ever-increasing list of mandates and standardization requirements enacted through multiple federal levers. ONC’s announcement of USCDI+ means federal agencies and their private sector stakeholders will be better aligned through a more enhanced standards recognition and adoption process by creating a method to address data needs that go beyond the original USCDI. Making ONC the main point of contact for this process gives health IT actors one place to go for questions, concerns and comments related to standards development, advancement, and implementation.
“CHIME continues to be a proud partner of ONC’s and applauds the efforts of National Coordinator Micky Tripathi to bring clarity and structure to what previously was a confusing standard mandate process,” CHIME CEO Russell Branzell stated. “The USCDI+ effort will help providers take the need to sift through multiple evolving standards-making body announcements off their plates. This enables our members to focus on what matters most, caring for patients and continuing to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Currently, USCDI v1 is mandated as part of the agency’s information blocking rules released last year, with future versions and additional standards moving through the standards version advancement process (SVAP). Future versions of USCDI, including the recently finalized v2, will not be mandated until the next time ONC undergoes a rulemaking process, at the earliest. Now with the addition of USCDI+ in addition to the latest versions of the USCDI, it appears that an even clearer path forward is visible for the next steps in the standards development process.
ONC’s most recently mandated CERHT product delivery date is not until Dec. 31, 2022 when the anxiously awaited Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) based application programming interfaces (APIs) are to be delivered. It is not expected that the agency would release additional CEHRT rulemaking or any mandates for USCDI versions beyond USCDI v1 prior to the end of 2022.
About CHIME
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs), chief innovation officers (CIOs), chief digital officers (CDOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 5,000 members in 56 countries plus two U.S. territories and over 150 healthcare IT business partners and professional services firms, CHIME and its three associations provide a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate, exchange best practices, address professional development needs and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and care in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.
Contact
Rosslyn Elliott
Editor, Communications & Media Relations, CHIME
734-275-0104