At a Brookings Institution panel discussion this week, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal said the health IT industry is likely to develop numerous avenues for health data exchange, Government Health IT reports.
Blumenthal said federal officials plan to continue promoting the Nationwide Health Information Network but expect other data-sharing channels to emerge.
Blumenthal also stressed the importance of developing interoperability standards in order to facilitate health data exchange for:
- Bio-surveillance;
- Clinical treatment;
- Comparative effectiveness research; and
- Drug safety surveillance.
By the end of this month, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT will release standards and certification criteria for electronic health records, Blumenthal said.
He added that standardizing EHR data elements will help promote interoperability for health data exchanges (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 12/3).