Source: Modern Healthcare
Even as the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology celebrates its 20th birthday, the agency has little time these days to stop and smell the roses. ONC, which supports the adoption of health IT standards from providers and technology vendors, was created by an executive order from former President George W. Bush on April 27, 2004 to help jumpstart the adoption of electronic health records. Before ONC was formed, paper records and charts stored on-site were normal. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 codified ONC’s existence and the agency was central to the adoption of EHRs across the industry during the 2010s. In 2024, ONC is faced with a new set of challenges in helping enforce interoperability and regulate artificial intelligence. “Now we’re in the next phase, which is a much more expansive mission and set of activities,” Micky Tripathi, ONC’s National Coordinator for Health Information Technology said in an interview. “How do you now use [medical data] in ways that help us move forward to benefit patients?”