By Anastasia Perchem and Lolita Kachay, ONC
Twitter: @ONC_HealthIT
It’s finally time for the 2021 ONC Tech Forum! This year’s Tech Forum will be held virtually on two consecutive Fridays: September 10 and 17, 2021.* Come join us to hear about industry perspectives on the progress made in health IT over the past year, and how we can continue to advance health technology to improve patient care, health equity, data exchange, and interoperability. Presenters from across the nation will discuss the ways in which the use of health IT supports national needs on topics such as social determinants of health (SDOH), accelerating public health data exchange, HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®)-based API adoption, updates to the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) data standards, and so much more.
Here’s a preview of what’s on deck for this year’s Tech Forum.
Combatting Health Inequities
Expect to hear from industry experts how SDOH standards are evolving, the impact of their inclusion in the USCDI, and the challenges of SDOH standards and how health IT is making a difference in health care for underserved and disadvantaged communities.
Measuring Quality and Interoperability
Automation has made electronic health record (EHR)-based metrics an invaluable tool for assessing quality. For this to work, EHR data must be both interoperable and standardized. Federal partners will describe their approaches to measuring interoperability, how FHIR helps to measure interoperability and healthcare quality, and what the future of quality measurement may look like.
Interoperability of Public Health Data
Federal, state and local agencies, and private sector partners have made a tremendous impact on interoperability over the past year as they put electronic health information and public health data into action to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal and state-level partners will give their perspective on gaps identified in public health data interoperability, and how those challenges can be addressed through innovations in technology.
Overcoming Barriers Between Care and Research
In a learning healthcare system, it is crucial for individuals’ health data to be accessible and interoperable across the care continuum from clinical care to research, and to have each individual actively engaged in managing their health information. For health data to better inform research, the health IT community has numerous opportunities to examine ways to overcome barriers to data accessibility, data quality, and data collection.
Look out for sessions with a variety of private sector and academic experts who will shed light on some of the barriers still facing the intersection of care and research, and proposed solutions for meeting those challenges head on.
Register for the 2021 Tech Forum
Register today for the Tech Forum so you don’t miss these conversations and other sessions, including a fireside chat with National Coordinator for Health IT Micky Tripathi. Registration is open now for the 2021 ONC Tech Forum, occurring September 10 and 17, 2021.
*The 2021 ONC Tech Forum had previously been scheduled for Sept. 16-17, 2021. Please note the new dates, Sept. 10 and 17, 2021.
This article was originally published on the Health IT Buzz and is syndicated here with permission.