DeSalvo Identifies Three Key ‘Pathways’ To Achieving Interoperability

In a Health Affairs blog post, National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo writes that she is “optimistic” about the future of health IT and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s efforts to achieve interoperability.

In the blog post, which is based off of DeSalvo’s presentation at HIMSS15, she notes that in the last year alone, ONC has collaborated with federal and state partners and participated in “listening sessions” to learn about what aspects of health IT “matte[r] most to them.”

DeSalvo writes that through the talks, ONC learned that health IT and interoperability must account for various state regulations and barriers, such as:

• Differing state privacy laws; and
• Lack of broadband access for some rural communities.

In addition, ONC discovered “the importance of trust, data access and how individuals and communities want to use data to improve overall health,” DeSalvo writes, noting that “there is an intense pressure and impatience to continue the great progress we have made in digitizing the care experience.”

DeSalvo writes that to continue progress toward achieving interoperability, the health care industry must do three things:

• “[S]tandardize standards,” such as those for implementation and application program interfaces;
• Clarify “the trust environment” and expectations for and actions toward data security and privacy; and
• Incentivize, in a “sustainable way,” interoperability and use of electronic health data.

According to DeSalvo, ONC is defining the trust environment by working with states to harmonize privacy policy and regulations.

DeSalvo concludes that while interoperability is a priority, it is “a means to an end” — an environment in which health IT enables improved care.

She writes, “We will need an unprecedented amount of cooperation, collaboration and transparency to see that there is the best public-private partnership possible” to ensure that all U.S. residents have “access to their electronic health information when and where it matters most to them” (DeSalvo, Health Affairs, 4/24).

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