At ONC, work continues amid Trump administration transition
At the jam-packed ONC Town Hall at HIMSS17 on Monday, seating was at a premium and the overflow audience queued for the Q&A in long lines. Clearly, interest is strong as the federal agency in charge of health information technology deals with the changes expected from a new administration whose priorities on health policy and government spending are markedly different from those of the previous eight years.
But Jon White, MD, acting national coordinator for health IT had to preface the talk with some caveats. Given that we're in a "unique time of transition" – just four weeks since President Donald Trump's inauguration and only one week since the Senate confirmation of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, MD – "I cannot say a lot to you about speculation for the new administration's priorities, and only a limited amount about 21st Century Cures," said White, referring to the landmark healthcare law signed into law by President Obama in December.
But White and 10 of his ONC colleagues – "super friends," he called the group – most of whom are holdovers from the Obama administration, were happy to talk about an array of topics of pressing importance to various stakeholders who filled the room.
Appearing with White were Seth Pazinsky, director of the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Analysis; Deven McGraw, acting chief privacy officer; Elise Sweeney Anthony, director of the Office of Policy; Rebecca Freeman, RN, chief nursing officer; Thomas Mason, MD, chief medical officer and acting director of the Office of Clinical Quality and Safety; John Rancourt, deputy director of the Office of Care Transformation; Teresa Zayas-Cabán, acting chief of staff and chief scientist; Steve Posnack, director of the Office of Standards and Technology; Lisa Lewis, deputy national coordinator for operations and chief operating officer; and Andrew Gettinger, MD, acting deputy national coordinator for health IT and chief medical information officer. Each offered an update on their particular area of focus.
Gettinger noted that ONC's new SAFER guides, which offer best practices for EHR safety, are "ever so much closer" to being published. Posnack hinted at new ONC prize challenges to be unveiled later this week. Zayas-Cabán spoke of a new pilot for the Sync for Science precision medicine project, hoped to launch in May. Pazinski said work continues on interoperability, measuring providers' progress on sending, finding, receiving and integrating data from outside sources and tracking how they're using it to inform care decisions
The Town Hall touched upon topics from patient-generated data, challenges with exchange of CCDA and ADT information, enhanced oversight and accountability for its certification program and new focuses on behavioral health and long-term/post-acute care.
As for 21st Century Cures, the law, "particularly the health IT provisions, were the culmination of a year and a half or two years of very active dialogue between us at ONC, staff on the Hill, both in the House and the Senate, as well as key stakeholders, who came in and we talked to them extensively," said White.
Now that it's been passed, the work ONC can do on it the short term is limited until Price gets more settled in at HHS. "The boxes are unpacked, they're getting the curtains in place, but we're working very closely with new leadership as well as our colleagues on who's doing what on those things," he said. "I know a lot of the iceberg has not been above the surface, but when it's time to make that information public, we will."
Currently, ONC is operating under a continuing resolution, which means "you can continue to do the things you have been doing," he explained. That means those aspects of 21st Century Cures for which ONC already has authority, "we can continue to expend appropriations on those things and work on them."
For other provisions, "which were not necessarily in our previous authorities, we need to have either a new appropriation or an anomaly added if there isn't another continuing resolution in the next couple of months that says, please start working on these new things," said White.
"We are working on an orderly and timely transition," said Sweeney Anthony. "We're very excited about that, and a lot of the structure that it provides. It really is an opportunity for us to start working with Secretary Price and really think about where the administration is, and what is needed."
This article is part of our ongoing coverage of HIMSS17. Visit Destination HIMSS17 for previews, reporting live from the show floor and after the conference.
