HHS Launching Initiative to Track Physician Use and Burdens of HIT

Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched an initiative to measure HIT use among office-based physicians across the country.

The HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) awarded a cooperative agreement to the American Board of Family Medicine to measure the use and potential burdens experienced by office-based physicians. The results of the effort will provide ONC with national-level data on how office-based physicians use HIT, including key measures on interoperability and burden.

This effort builds on prior research that found, in 2017, approximately 80% of office-based physicians used a certified EHR, but only 1 in 10 of those physicians reported that they were able to electronically send, receive, find, and integrate health data from EHRs outside of their networks. Under the three-year cooperative agreement, the American Board of Family Medicine will do the following:

• develop key measures related to HIT use and the interoperability of health information;
• collect data from a nationally representative sample of office-based physicians to support national level progress; and
• collaborate with ONC on the analysis and interpretation of the survey results.

ONC expects the data will help identify disparities or unintended consequences due to the use of HIT and the impacts of federal HIT policies to guide future policy decisions.

Source: Health & Human Services