The 2024-2030 plan lays out strategic goals and principles to help the health IT sector.
Last week the ONC released a strategic plan that outlines health IT priorities with a focus on health equity and AI use over the next five years. The plan intends to serve as a guide for federal health IT initiatives, as well as an impetus for activity in the private sector.
According to the ONC and HHS, the plan, which is a collaboration of the ONC with 25 other federal agencies, outlines federal health IT goals to improve health experiences and outcomes for individuals and populations as a whole.
The plan cites that its intended use aims to: prioritize resources, align and coordinate efforts, benchmark and assess progress, and signal priorities to the industry.
The plan outlines four main goals:
1. Health and wellness: Promote health and wellness for individuals, communities and populations so they feel empowered to manage their health.
2. Enhance the delivery and experience of care: Enhance the delivery of care for everyone from patients to providers to public health experts.
3. Accelerate research and innovation: Accelerate research and innovation through collaborative efforts across health IT developers and users.
4. Connect the health system with health data: Connect the health system with health data for all health IT users
Goals 1-3 are focused on plans to improve the experiences and outcomes for health IT users, while goal four focused on the policies and technologies needed to support those users.
The plan also outlines six principles including:
- Person-centered, inclusive design to “strengthen individuals’ ability to securely access and use their own health information to take greater control over their own health, while ensuring that their data are accurate.”
- Safety and quality to “promote the use of health data that are accurate and provide benefits to individuals and their communities.”
- Privacy and security to “provide tools, guidance, and regulations to build trust and protect individuals’ health information from misuse.”
- Data-led decision making to support health information sharing throughout the healthcare industry in order for groups, organizations and individuals make informed decisions and create better health outcomes.
- Increase health equity across all populations to “advance the use of data to represent social needs and the conditions in which people live, learn, work, and play.”
- Encourage innovation and competition to support “new solutions and business models for better care and improved outcomes.”
"The draft plan acknowledges the swift evolution of AI and increased use in health care, emphasizing the urgent need for the federal government to navigate this transformative landscape both responsibly and effectively in health and health care," ONC officials wrote in a blog post.
Public comment on the plan is open until May 28.
Marie DeFreitas is the finance editor for HealthLeaders.