Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and IHE USA
Announce Cooperative Agreement to Support Advancements in Health IT Standards
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has announced the Integrating the Health Enterprise (IHE) USA Cooperative Agreement Notice of Funding Opportunity. The Cooperative Agreement will support advancements in the technical standards necessary to achieve interoperability among health IT systems and to reach the milestones identified in the Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap and in support of the Cures Act.
IHE USA is a not for profit co-founded in 2010 by HIMSS and RSNA. IHE USA operates as a national deployment committee of IHE International, serving as a voice representing US health IT interests and key partners in national health IT efforts for fostering the national adoption of a consistent set of information standards to enable interoperability of health IT systems. HIMSS serves as the secretariat of IHE USA and through that role provides staff and in-kind services.
Together, IHE and the ONC will:
- Identify and update IHE Profiles that support the use of FHIR® as an alternative or complement to existing IHE document based exchange specifications, and publish the updated profiles as publicly available IHE Technical Profiles
- Support real world testing and adoption by health IT developers through IHE North American Connectathons, HL7 Developer Days, and other related activities
- Encourage IHE USA and the broader standards community to provide continuous feedback based on lessons gleaned through profiling and real world testing
“We look forward to working directly with IHE USA to advance greater standardization and interoperability in areas of national interest,” said Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for Health Information Technology.
In the Cures Act, Congress directed HHS to advance the exchange of electronic health information through a number of provisions that promote interoperability. The vision laid out by the Cures Act and Congress requires the accelerated and coordinated development of high quality standards and implementation guides, as well as the ability to support the interoperability testing continuum from standards development to product deployment and beyond. IHE USA and ONC will lead a multi-stakeholder effort to develop and update new technical interoperability standards, profiles, and implementation guides that are necessary for the industry to transition to modern Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and emerging standards like FHIR® that promise to deliver the types of interoperability benefits that power the smartphone economy.
“We look forward to working alongside ONC and our stakeholder partners to more rapidly achieve interoperability in our health ecosystem,” said Joyce Sensmeier, President, IHE USA.
IHE USA, a national deployment committee of IHE International, hosts the IHE North American Connectathon and supports the development of IHE Technical Frameworks which are freely available in the public domain, and which serve as detailed implementation guides to achieve consistent system integration.
About IHE USA
IHE USA (www.iheusa.org) is a 501.c.3 not for profit organization founded in 2010. Its vision is to improve the quality, value, and safety of healthcare by enabling rapid, scalable, and secure access to health information at the point of care. IHE USA operates as a national deployment committee of IHE International in order to advance its mission to improve U.S. healthcare by promoting the adoption and use of IHE and other world-class standards, tools, and services for interoperability. IHE USA engages all levels of public and private sector participants to test, implement, and use standards-based solutions for all health information needs.
About this Project
The IHE USA Cooperative Agreement is supported by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number 90AX0027/01-00 and funded by both ONC with in-kind contributions from HIMSS.