It’s time for our favorite summer tradition—this time on a new platform! The annual comment period for the Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) will be open June 12 – August 12, 2024. This year we’re launching a new Interoperability Standards Platform (ISP) to house not only ISA, but all our other important standards initiatives, including the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI), USCDI+, Standards Version Advancement Process (SVAP), and many more.

The ISA comment period is an opportunity for our community of standards experts, developers, and users to provide comments, suggest revisions, and propose additions to the ISA before ONC publishes a print-friendly web-only (yes, you heard that right) 11^th Annual ISA Reference Edition in January 2025. The forthcoming edition and future editions will remain tagged and available to ensure yearly versions are clear for the viewer.

ONC welcomes public comments on the ISA at any time during the year; however, to be considered for inclusion in the 2025 ISA Reference Edition, comments must be submitted by August 9th at 11:59pm ET. To submit comments, please create a user account by clicking the “Log In” button located at the top right of the ISA page and follow the prompts to submit your comments.

A Decade of ISA!

Established in 2014, ONC curates the ISA to provide the public and industry with a single, living reference point of standards and implementation specifications that can be used to address specific health IT interoperability needs in the United States. The ISA originally included 41 interoperability needs; over the past ten years that has grown to 75 different standards areas. This growth reflects the industry ’s movement towards standardization and improved interoperability.  Among other things, this growth makes clear the need for a more flexible web version will better meet users’ needs as opposed to a static, yearly document.

10^th Edition Highlights

ONC received many important comments that influenced last year’s 10th Annual ISA Reference Edition update. The updated ISA included new standards, implementation specifications, and highlighted health IT interoperability needs specific to Pharmacy Interoperability, Human and Social Services, and Price Transparency.

More on the ISP

Over time, ONC’s standards initiatives have grown beyond the initial ISA. On the heels of ONC celebrating its 20^th anniversary we want to better organize our programs for the community to navigate. The ISP provides a one-stop-shop for accessing ONC-supported standards projects and allows industry partners to more easily find relevant programs. We plan to enhance the ISP over the next several months to provide an enhanced user experience with easier navigation to all ONC standards initiatives.

ONC thanks the health IT community for the continued engagement and feedback over the past decade, helping to ensure the ISA includes the most up-to-date and accurate state of health IT standards in the nation.

Let’s continue to advance interoperability together!