HIMSS and PCHAlliance Comment on Federal Health IT Strategic Plan

HIMSS and PCHAlliance provided written comments in response to the Draft 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan.

Overall, we expressed support for the Strategic Plan’s outcomes-driven approach and goals focused on meeting the needs of individuals, populations, caregivers, healthcare providers, payers, researchers, developers and innovators.

In addition, HIMSS and PCHAlliance are aligned with how the Strategic Plan highlights the importance of the shift to value-based care through new incentives for healthcare providers to improve quality and patient outcomes.

The Plan’s strategic goals and objectives capture important themes that ONC should concentrate on over the next five years, although our comment letter offers thoughts and recommendations on specific objectives and strategies included in the Plan. Our overarching goal for the Plan is to create an environment where the federal government collaborates with all healthcare stakeholders to empower patients while delivering better outcomes as well as higher quality and more cost-effective care.

HIMSS and PCHAlliance suggest there is considerable value in the Strategic Plan placing greater emphasis on advancing health information infrastructure that enables individuals to take more control over their personal health and wellness through access to their personal health data and digital tools that educate and guide personal health decisions that support health and wellness.

We also note how the COVID-19 global pandemic is having a devastating impact on populations, and we highlight how to advance and strengthen population health and wellness: transform today’s healthcare system toward the future, digitally-enabled health system; and, mobilize data into knowledge and insights that inform care delivery focused on keeping people and populations healthy.

HIMSS and PCHAlliance also look at revising the Strategic Plan’s definition of interoperability and utilizing HIMSS’s work on Interoperability in the Healthcare Ecosystem and our Four Levels of Interoperability.

If you have questions, or need more information, about HIMSS and PCHAlliance’s efforts to develop comments on the Strategic Plan, please reach out to policy@himss.org.