TEFCA

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ASTHO Releases Two New Reports On IIS

In March 2023 the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers (ASTHO) released two environmental scans related to public health data and systems funded by a grant from ONC. The first report, Immunization Information Systems, and Health Information Exchanges: An Environmental Scan of Factors Influencing Data Sharing and Opportunities to Advance Population Health, provides a review of the state of both IIS and HIEs – as well as their points of intersection and support – especially as they were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. ASTHO used a mixture of secondary source review (including our white paper on this topic from nearly ten years ago) and current interviews and focus groups to inform us about this complex and fluid topic.

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The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms (Part 4): APIs Enable the Platforming of Healthcare

Recent regulations have mandated the use of HL7 FHIR APIs (application programming interfaces) to share health data. The regs apply to healthcare providers, payers, and technology developers who participate in federal programs. Many incumbent healthcare organizations are viewing these mandates as a compliance burden. That’s short-sighted. We recommend a more opportunistic POV. APIs facilitate the sharing of health data across different devices and platforms. By adopting APIs, healthcare organizations can transform themselves from traditional service providers into powerful platforms that can connect patients, providers, and other stakeholders in new and innovative ways.

Two New Federal Reports Released That Have Major Public Health Impacts

Two new Federal reports were recently released that have a public health impact. First, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released its 2022 Report to Congress: Update on Access, Exchange, and Use of Electronic Health Information. This report covers the current state of adoption of health information technology and access to electronic health information guided largely by the requirements of the 2016 21st Century Cures Act. The report observes that, “Although tremendous progress has been made with EHRs that capture and support the use of health information about individuals, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed gaps in health IT systems that support capturing and using population data. The challenges exposed during the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic pinpointed the importance of health IT to monitor population health regarding public health surveillance of testing, diagnosis, and vaccine distribution.”

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