ONC Pushing for Standards to Increase Interoperability

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) is pushing hard for universal adoption of standards that will increase the interoperability of health IT applications, according to Doug Fridsma, director of ONC's Office of Standards and Interoperability.

Writing on ONC's Health IT Buzz blog, Fridsma explained why these standards should not be optional. "Reducing optionality improves interoperability and lowers the cost for vendors to implement," he said, "thus lowering the cost for healthcare providers as well."

Fridsma summarized recent advances on three ONC projects related to interoperability standards: the Transitions of Care (ToC) initiative, the Lab Results Interface initiative, and the Modular Specifications project.

Read the full article at: http://tinyurl.com/83d5rh7

Source: Fierce HealthIT