The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has updated the federal health information technology (IT) strategic plan for 2015 through 2020. The five goals are to expand adoption of health IT, advance secure and interoperable health information, strengthen healthcare delivery, advance the health and well-being of individuals and communities, and advance research, scientific knowledge, and innovation. For each goal, the plan specifies objectives, outcomes, and strategies. Outcomes are classified into both three- and six-year time frames, and responsible federal departments and agencies are listed under each. ONC will accept public comments through February 6, 2015. In related news, a report prepared for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality by JASON, an advisory group operated through the MITRE Corporation, discusses how to leverage health IT to transform the system from one focused on the care of individuals to one focused on the health of individuals. According to the report, "The ultimate goal is to achieve an agile, national-scale 'Learning Health System' for identifying and sharing effective practices of care." Such a system would connect the medical system with "broader societal inputs," which would require degrees of access to, integration of, and scalability of data that goes beyond just interoperability. The report offers several recommendations, involving, for example, establishment of standards and incentives for sharing of health information, open application programming interface standards, challenges for community involvement, training for healthcare providers in health informatics, and regulatory approaches that foster innovation.

HRC Recommends: Healthcare organizations may wish to review ONC's plan and consider how their own strategic goals, in regard to health IT specifically and the organization's direction more broadly, align with those outlined in the plan. Risk managers may consider how best to help the organization use health IT to achieve its goals while managing risks that may arise, such as those related to implementation, incentives and penalties, health information privacy and security, and clinical use.