Opportunity knocks for NIH researchers, who will be able to leverage clinical data from electronic health record (EHR) systems with increased frequency and consistency. The passage of the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act) has charted a path toward increasing access to and interoperability of electronic health information for clinical care. This, in turn, has paved the way to leverage relevant policies, systems, and infrastructure to accelerate research. In parallel, researchers have been challenged to make data from a single research study,

Over the past decade, ONC has worked with health information technology (health IT) developers, standards development organizations, healthcare providers, patient advocates, health information exchange (HIE) administrators, state public health agencies, and other stakeholders to advance an interoperable health IT infrastructure across the country. ONC has also worked to expand access to health IT solutions across the care continuum to support medical specialty care and sites of service.