The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT hopes to demonstrate and test in late summer tools that will make it easier to share patient data, and to include them in the next stage of meaningful use criteria. The tools are the result of projects to simplify and make consistent the technical descriptions for deploying standards for sharing patient data. ONC wants those tools and specifications in the proposed rule for stage 2 of meaningful use standards and certification criteria, due by yearend, said Doug Fridsma, MD, director of ONC?s Office of Standards and Interoperability. The tools and technical descriptions are among the first projects that ONC launched in January for its Standards & Interoperability Framework, which aims to tackle persistent challenges that healthcare providers face in exchanging information successfully.
