CDC and ONC are working together to strengthen public health data infrastructure
ORLANDO – Since its inception, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has “defied physics to some extent,” moving both “fast and slow at the same time,” says Steve Posnack, deputy national coordinator for health IT, as he opened a thought leadership session on HIMSS24 on Tuesday featuring Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control, and focused on the connection between healthcare IT and public health.
“To know what our future looks like, we must respect and understand how much progress we have made over the past twenty years, in which I have played a major role and had a great experience as part of the ONC team from almost the beginning there Posnack said.
While the healthcare continuum still needs to make progress in digital transformation, ONC will focus on the public health side of interoperability in the next edition of the Healthcare IT Certification Rules – HTI-2.
As HTI-1 came into effect on Monday, Micky Tripathi, national coordinator for healthcare IT, said Healthcare IT news last month that ONC’s 2024 interoperability roadmap includes the HTI-2 update, “as there are more things we need to complete.” The update will include better standardization for public health, so it is “more efficient and effective,” Tripathi said.
Also on Tuesday, ONC published one blog post written by Tripathi on the agency’s commitment to “better health powered by data,” which noted that CDC and ONC will collaborate with state, territory and health care IT certification programs in developing the next version of the healthcare IT certification program , local and tribal partners “to implement a coordinated, phased approach to certification for public health use cases.”
Health IT has made significant progress
Posnack reflected on how the stages of meaningful use “felt like it took forever,” but he said that looking back, he is impressed that in the space of about five or six years there has been a rapid increase occurred in the acceptance of digital technology. health records from hospitals and the majority of office doctors.
“There was a very short period where we made significant progress in our country’s healthcare IT and digital healthcare infrastructure,” he said.
“That’s really something to be proud of and something we’ve built a lot more progress and change on.”
Later in the conversation, Cohen said public health was also experiencing a similarly physics-defying moment with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a hard lesson about siled public health and the health care system,” she said, discussing rapid changes such as the “Kill the fax” program she led while leading the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services during COVID. -19.
“We now have integrated laboratory data sharing in every part of this country, which is fantastic,” she said.
From a data perspective, public health data silos hinder the nation’s ability to respond and protect against viruses and other public health threats.
However, Cohen said she sees public health “making some big leaps forward to catch up, and maybe even leapfrog forward.”
“Learn many lessons, as (Posnack) said, fast and slow.”
Cohen added that she hopes people now see a difference in the way the post-pandemic CDC operates.
“Most immediately, I hope you see us sharing information quickly, turning science into action more easily, prioritizing and monitoring how we speak and what we do with communications,” she said. “We want to break down silos because public health cannot protect health alone. This has to be a team sport.”
The “silver lining” of what public health has experienced during the crisis has been “incredible partnerships,” Cohen added. “I saw it in North Carolina, where competing health care systems came together to achieve a common goal for the state… unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”
Partnerships, TEFCA can promote public health
Where COVID-19 broke up competition, Cohen said she doesn’t want all collaborating entities to go back to their corners.
To anchor these lessons learned in public health, “it all fits within the overall (U.S. healthcare and health care) data strategy,” she said. “The way I think about bringing together public health and the healthcare system is through our data systems,” she said.
Cohen called ONC and national coordinator Micky Tripathi a great partner in advancing data transformation.
Public health went digital later than other parts of health care, “because we didn’t have enough resources,” she said.
“But TEFCA – thank you,” she said, referring to ONC’s Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement interoperability efforts.
TEFCA “can really move us forward,” she explained, adding her appreciation for the USCDI+ public health standards.
Public health interoperability needs federal leadership
“I’ve really seen a lot of progress, first at the state level, and now had the opportunity to see it up close as a partner at CDC,” Cohen said.
While the partnership with the states is in place, CDC is working to understand what barriers exist to public health data systems at the local level.
“People want guidance,” she said. “That’s what I’m hearing from leaders across the country… they want to make sure they’re building in a way that resonates with the sentiment.”
Posnack added, “That’s an area of collaboration for us in terms of using both of our levers together.”
Where CDC has funding opportunities for state and local public health agencies, ONC can support their health IT in the area of certification, he added.
The federal agency’s representatives also emphasized that they have no intention of starting from scratch.
“If I have one take-home message, it’s about the fact that we are not building a public health infrastructure for data.”
However, to detect and monitor public health threats and respond quickly, “we need to make these investments,” she said. “I think we’ve seen that if we can’t do that, we’re paralyzed, and we’re not as healthy, and we’re not as safe.”
That’s why, “I want people in the healthcare IT industry to say to our legislators, ‘Hey, public health is moving in the right direction here,'” Cohen said.
In the 2025 budget, the Biden administration included substantial funding for data generation, but 80% of CDC funding goes directly to public health agencies, she said.
“It is up to the entire network to ensure we are ready for whatever next health threat arises.”
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication