On Tuesday, Farzad Mostashari -- deputy national coordinator for programs and policy at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT -- said ONC is looking for "bold incrementalism" to help promote widespread health IT adoption, Modern Healthcare reports.
Mostashari spoke in a keynote address at the Government Health IT 2010 Conference and Exhibition, an event coinciding with National Health IT Week in Washington, D.C. (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 6/16). More than 170 organizations are participating in the fifth annual National Health IT Week, which aims to raise lawmakers' awareness about the role of health IT in the U.S. health care system (Pecquet, "Healthwatch," The Hill, 6/15).
Mostashari said some health care providers might not have the capacity to link to the Nationwide Health Information Network in time to qualify for health IT incentive payments under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package. He said ONC created NHIN Direct as a simplified data exchange platform, noting that there "can't be one-size-fits-all for information exchange."
Mostashari said another example of "bold incrementalism" is the expanded use of metadata, in which health care providers "tag" a patient's EHR to add clinical context information or track the movement of the data between various health care entities (Modern Healthcare, 6/16).