New ONC research shows a more than 20% rise in the number of apps that integrate with certified electronic health records (EHRs).

A manuscript highlighting the findings of this research was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: “The Ecosystem of Apps and Software integrated with Certified Health Information Technology”. Our study analyzed apps that were discoverable in app galleries managed by EHR developers – Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner Corporation and Epic Systems Corporation – as well as the SMART App Gallery. Specifically, ONC wanted to understand the growth of the app market, the variety of available app functions, how these apps connect to EHRs, and if the apps support the Health Level Seven® (HL7) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources® (FHIR) standard.

When a family member, friend, or loved one develops an opioid addiction, few people know how to respond. Similarly, it is often difficult for healthcare providers to know how to best prevent, detect, and treat opioid use disorder, and almost every provider in the country has had encounters with patients experiencing addiction. As trusted guardians of their patients’ well-being, providers are exploring how to use technology to augment their experience, skill, and knowledge for improved care. Concurrent with technological innovation, more states have adopted policies intended to drive widespread adoption and use of technology such as prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) to view patient medication histories and electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS) to treat pain.

ONC awarded $73 million in cooperative agreements as part of its Public Health Informatics & Technology Workforce Development Program (PHIT Workforce Program). Announced earlier this year and funded through the American Rescue Plan, the program aims to strengthen U.S. public health information technology (IT) efforts, improve COVID-19 data collection, and increase representation of underrepresented communities within the public health IT workforce.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) today announced $100,000 in total awards to six winners of the Synthetic Health Data Challenge (Challenge). Synthetic health data (i.e., data that is artificially created to mimic real-world data), is important to researchers, health IT developers, and informaticians, among others, who need data to test new ideas until access to secure and actual clinical data is available.

ONC announced a change in the Standards Version Advancement Process (SVAP) timeline. The current SVAP comment period, due to end September 30, has been extended to May 2, 2022 to align with important standards development activities.