Portrait of Chelsea Richwine

A Decade of Data Examined: Patient Access to Electronic Health Information

Chelsea Richwine | December 11, 2023

The world is better off and getting better, compared to popular opinion and what’s broadcast on the news, says Hans Rosling and his co-authors, using simple, comprehensive measures, in Factfulness. Sometimes taking a step back and looking at the big picture (and the data) is important to take stock of actual progress and the necessary work to come. In that spirit, we’re kicking off a new blog series: “A Decade of Data Examined.” These posts will provide a comprehensive look at measures and metrics we’ve tracked for ten or more years to assess progress on important ONC mission activities and help chart a path forward on the work still to come.

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Portrait of Brett Andriesen

New USCDI+ Platform Now Live; Public Health Datasets Available for Comment

Brett Andriesen | December 7, 2023

The wait is finally over! If you’ve been following ONC’s work on USCDI+ over the past year, you’ve likely heard discussion of a new platform for organizing and building out the various USCDI+ datasets. After several months of development and testing, the new platform is now live at https://uscdiplus.healthit.gov and will be the single location where USCDI+ datasets for all domains will be located.

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Portrait of Alison Kemp , ,

FHIR Factories Help Researchers use EHR Data

Alison Kemp | December 4, 2023

Researchers, developers, and clinicians have new tools to help them access high-quality electronic health record (EHR) data more effectively. A 2020 ONC Leading Edge Acceleration Project (LEAP) in Health IT awardee, MedStar Health Research Institute, in collaboration with the Georgetown University Medical Center and HealthLab, developed two new data tools as part of MedStar’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources® (FHIR) Factories: An Evolving Digital Architecture to Scale Health Research project.

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Portrait of Michael Morrison

Procurement Pro: Hear from ONC’s Michael Morrison

Michael Morrison | November 27, 2023

Michael Morrison serves as the procurement branch chief in ONC’s procurement and grants division (PGD). He is responsible for a wide range of key functions associated with the acquisition of goods and services to carry out ONC’s responsibilities. As a senior staff member in ONC’s office of the chief operation officer (OCOO), he manages a highly trained and experienced staff. Together they navigate the complex, fast paced maze of ONC’s procurements.

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Portrait of Jordan Everson

The Digital Health Divide for Populations that have been Marginalized

Jordan Everson | November 13, 2023

Many hospitals have adopted systems for interoperable patient data exchange and are connected to national networks. However, ONC has consistently found that rates of interoperable exchange for smaller, rural, and independent hospitals have notably lagged behind other hospitals. For example, in both 2017 and 2021, rural hospitals were 23 percentage points less likely to engage in interoperable exchange compared to urban hospitals. In a recent study, ONC explored this digital divide to better understand the relationship between interoperable exchange and measures of hospitals that served populations that have been marginalized.

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