News This Week from HealthIT.gov

News This Week from HealthIT.gov

In This Issue

• National Nurses Week
• Million Hearts® listening session
• HIT Policy Committee meeting
• HIE Governance Framework
• PlanningRoom.org
• Summary: Summit on Achieving eHealth Equity
• ONC Leader bios

National Nurses Week

Next week is National Nurses Week and we will be publishing blog posts everyday from nurses around the country, talking about how they work with the teams of other providers to implement and use health information technology. Watch our Buzz-Blog for updates throughout the week and we want to take a second to thank all the nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other non-physician practitioners for all the hard work they do!

Million Hearts® listening session

If you or your doctors have difficulty managing patients with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, COPD or other heart diseases, join our listening session and webinar next week on the Million Hearts® initiative.  Million Hearts® is aimed at preventing 1 million strokes and heart attacks by 2017. Physicians and ONC and HHS officials will be on hand to talk about the initiative during a webinar slated for Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. (EDT).

HIT Policy Committee meeting

The HIT Policy Committee will meet next Tuesday (May 7) here in Washington, D.C. Information about how to listen in or watch via live streaming is available, but please watch our FACA page for the committee’s meeting agenda and materials, which are generally posted the day before the committee convenes.

HIE Governance Framework

HIE governance is tough work and takes commitment from all stakeholders. This week ONC released the Governance Framework for Trusted Electronic Health Information Exchange which includes the principles in which ONC believes for HIE governance.  The Governance Framework can be accessed from ONC’s webpage dedicated to HIE governance issues. Please check out the new framework.

Planning Room.org

We've been collaborating with Cornell University’s School of Law on the planningroom.org tool for the past couple months to gather online input to update the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan. So far, some interesting discussions on current programs and evolving health issues have been going on, such as patient-generated health data, reducing health disparities, and supporting new health care delivery models. We know there are lots more ideas about how the government can support patients, providers and health IT developers to improve people’s health and health care. Join the discussion before the comment period ends Thursday, May 9.  Please take a minute to visit the page and leave your thoughts about the Health IT Strategic Plan and how we can better empower patients to be better stewards of their own health data.

Summary: Summit on Achieving eHealth Equity

Springing from a White House Summit on health disparities, ONC researchers – along with our partners at the HHS Office of Minority Health and ZeroDivide – published a report that touches on the ability of Health IT to reduce these disparities. ONC chief Farzad Mostashari is quoted in the report as saying that “We have the opportunity and possibility with health information technology to tackle some of the most difficult problems by making visible what is often invisible in healthcare.” The report is available on our website.

ONC Leader bios

We have posted a pair of new bios for newly minted leaders at ONC including Deputy Coordinator of Operations Lisa Lewis and Acting Director, Beacon Community Program Janhavi Kirtane Fritz, take a look.