Expert questions funds for interoperability challenges in healthcare
Up to $2 million will be provided by the ONC to two recipients to address interoperability challenges in healthcare, but one expert questions if it will be enough.
One expert says the $2 million in funding ONC is offering developers to address interoperability challenges in healthcare -- although commendable -- may not be enough.
"I applaud ONC for recognizing this challenge and making funds available for development of interoperability platforms and solutions," said John McDaniel, senior vice president of innovation and technology for health IT consulting firm The HCI Group. "However, based on the work we have done with vendors that offer interoperability solutions, I don't believe $2 million will address the issue."
ONC funding offered in two areas
ONC will provide up to $2 million in funding to two recipients focused on developing innovative and breakthrough advances in two areas: expanding the scope of population-level data-focused application programming interfaces (APIs) and advancing clinical knowledge at the point of care, according to ONC.
For expanding the scale of APIs, ONC wants to see projects that reduce provider burdens associated with reporting through API technology, as well as assessing trade-offs associated with various big data formats and challenges to the scope of FHIR-based APIs.
As for advancing clinical knowledge at the point of care, ONC hopes to see "emerging innovations" in clinical medicine, as well as data-driven medicine infrastructure and legal and policy implications for innovative approaches, according to the ONC news release.
Additional funding may be available
ONC will fund up to $1 million per area of interest by 2019. After the funds are awarded, there will be a two-year project and budget period, but applicants are encouraged to submit responses based on a five-year project and budget period because additional funding for three to five years could be provided based on the availability of funds and "meaningful progress."
Based on the work we have done with vendors that offer interoperability solutions, I don't believe $2 million will address the issue.
John McDanielsenior vice president of innovation and technology, The HCI Group
The funding opportunity will be open for three years, allowing for the possibility that ONC will issue additional awards to other eligible applicants for future "priority areas of interest."
ONC expects the funding to "further a new generation of health IT development and inform the innovative implementation and refinement of standards, methods and techniques for overcoming major barriers and challenges as they are identified." Though he questions whether $2 million will be enough to address interoperability challenges in healthcare, McDaniel said he has seen ONC be successful with similar initiatives in the past, such as establishing incentives to motivate healthcare organizations to implement EHRs, which enabled the digitization of patient care documentation.
The full scope of interoperability challenges in healthcare
Now, McDaniel said, the challenge is to enable full interoperability to not only digitize retrospective patient data, but to "capture and use real-time patient information coupled with cognitive computing to assist care providers with decision-making and best practices given the full view of all relevant patient data."
"Developing interoperability between EHR's is a good start, but since only a percentage of relevant retrospective patient data is maintained in those systems, we need to establish interoperability standards for dynamic exchange of data from all source systems, including IoT, EHR's medical devices, personal health devices, etc., to enable precision and predictive care models," McDaniel said.
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