The President’s Proposed Budget Request for FY 2020 for the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for HIT (ONC) https://www.healthit.gov includes $43 million for ONC to support interoperability and usability of health IT. In addition, ONC will promote health IT approaches to combat the opioid epidemic through targeted collaborations with HHS partners, health IT stakeholders, including healthcare practitioners, administrators, and physician practice owners
In FY 2020, ONC will work with HHS partners to improve opioid prescribing practices, inform clinical practices, protect patients at risk, and reduce the illegal use of prescription medications through health IT. ONC will also work to advance the accessibility and interoperability of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs.
The proposed budget request supports a Health IT Advisory Committee (HITAC) established by the Cures Act, to provide recommendations to the National Coordinator related to implementing a health IT infrastructure to advance the electronic access, exchange, and use of health information. In FY 2020, ONC will work with private sector stakeholders to promote access, exchange, and the use of relevant health information across networks.
In FY 2020, ONC’s work on standards will focus on application programming interface standards, demonstration projects and pilots, testing implementation, and collaborations with industry stakeholders. The goal is to improve clinical workflow, enable robust competition for useful and interoperable health IT products, and improve patient access to information concerning their health.
To help FDA https://www.fda.gov enhance the safety of medical devices, the FY 2020 budget addresses how to improve the devices to protect patients and foster innovation. To meet the need for safety, the FY 2020 Budget proposes $55 million for an initiative to build an integrated knowledge management system and a portal for medical devices using modern, agile information technology systems.
The system will have secure cloud-based data storage to enable safety issues to be monitored along the total life cycle of the device, from bench testing to premarket clinical trials, to post market adverse events, and real world evidence.
Overall, device reviews, post market surveillance, and cybersecurity efforts will be efficient and informative. These efforts could shorten review cycles, quickly identify and address safety signals and cyber vulnerabilities, and spur the development of innovative, safer, and more effective devices.
Go to https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/fy-2020-budget-in-brief.pdf for the full HHS Budget in Brief.