From the ONC Desk

Portrait of Joy Pritts

Personal Health Records Roundtable

Joy Pritts | December 29, 2010

Understanding the Evolving Landscape
Personal health records (PHRs) have the potential to give individuals more control over their health information — collecting, using, and sharing it as they see fit. On December 3, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), held a PHR Roundtable to gain a better understanding of PHRs as well as other emerging technologies, and the dynamic and evolving market in which they exist, with a focus on privacy and security.

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Portrait of Dr. David Blumenthal

2010 ONC Update and Grantee Meeting

Dr. David Blumenthal | December 27, 2010

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2010 ONC Update on December 14-15, 2010 where we had the opportunity to discuss ONC’s strategies and programs, hear about your experiences in the field, assess progress to date, and get caught up on HITECH’s implementation. Video-recordings of the webcast are now available through the ONC website at  http://healthit.hhs.gov/ONCMeeting2010.

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Portrait of Dr. David Blumenthal

Certified EHR Systems are Affirming Flexibility

Dr. David Blumenthal | December 23, 2010

Today on our FAQ page, we are posting a revised Question and Answer regarding an issue that has recently caused confusion in our meaningful use regulations:  namely, the flexibility that providers have to defer performance on some Stage 1 meaningful use objectives; and how that squares with the requirement that providers must nonetheless possess fully-certified EHR systems. 

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Portrait of Jodi G. Daniel

Health IT Strategy for Empowering Consumers Round Two

Jodi G. Daniel | November 19, 2010

Thank you for the thoughtful discussion in response to my blog post “Strategy for Empowering Consumers.” As has consistently been ONC’s experience with the Health IT Buzz Blog, the points made in your responses have both broadened and sharpened our thinking. The blog itself highlights a lesson that has become clear for our communication efforts: we should take greater advantage of social networking tools (and this means much more than blogging) when bringing our policy conversations outside of the walls of HHS. 

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