Hey class, it’s time to jump in the Wayback Machine. In this case, I literally had to use the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to rummage for this post’s content in honor of ONC’s 20th anniversary.

The research is timely as federal and state policymakers consider ways to protect the public against the unintended consequences of using predictive models and AI in health care. For example, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology within the Department of Health and Human Services recently finalized a rule that enacts transparency requirements for algorithms that Medicare and Medicaid electronic health records systems use for “predictive decision support interventions.” The goal of this new rule is to establish more clarity for clinicians about the design and performance of these decision support tools.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and the Sequoia Project on Monday announced the launch of Common Agreement Version 2.0, an update to the document most recently released this past November. ONC also published new Participant and Subparticipant Terms of Participation, which set forth the requirements that participants must agree to and comply with to exchange data under the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement. ONC and Sequoia say the seven designated Qualified Health Information Networks under TEFCA can now adopt and begin implementing the new version, CA v2.0, which has been updated to require support for API exchange using HL7's FHIR spec. That will allow TEFCA participants and subparticipants to more easily exchange health information among themselves and will help individuals to more easily access their own data using devices and apps of their choice.

Federal officials are showing further support for FHIR with the release of version 2.0 of the Common Agreement, which established the foundation for the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) data exchange framework. HL7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Application Programming Interface (API) exchange has long been seen as a key element to nationwide interoperability, but many are worried that healthcare organizations are ready to embrace the standards just yet. Version 2.0, released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and The Sequoia Projects, ONC’s Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) for TEFCA, includes enhancements and updates for FHIR support.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and its Recognized Coordinating Entity® (RCE™), The Sequoia Project, Inc., announced today that Common Agreement Version 2.0 (CA v2.0) has been released. The Common Agreement establishes the technical infrastructure model and governing approach for different health information networks and their users to securely share clinical information with each other – all under commonly agreed-to rules-of-the-road.