CHA News

ONC Issues Additional Rule on Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability

What’s happening: The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) issued a proposed rule to advance interoperability and improve information sharing among patients, providers, payers, and public health authorities. 

What else to know: The proposed rule builds upon a final rule published in January.   

Key proposals would:  

  • Add two sets of new certification criteria, designed to enable health information technology (IT) for public health as well as health IT for payers to be certified under the ONC Health IT Certification Program. Both sets of certification criteria focus heavily on standards-based application programming interfaces to improve end-to-end interoperability between data exchange partners (health care providers to public health and to payers, respectively). 
  • Update technology and standards that build on the HTI-1 final rule, ranging from the capability to exchange clinical images (e.g., X-rays) to the addition of multi-factor authentication support. 
  • Require the adoption of United States Core Data for Interoperability version 4 by Jan. 1, 2028. 
  • Make adjustments to certain “exceptions” to the information blocking regulations to cover additional practices that have recently been identified by the regulated community, including a new “Protecting Care Access” exception, which would cover practices an actor takes in certain circumstances to reduce its risk of legal exposure stemming from sharing information. 
  • Establish certain Trusted Exchange Framework and Common AgreementTM governance rules, which include requirements that implement section 4003 of the 21st Century Cures Act. 

ONC will host an information session on July 17 at 11 a.m. (PT). Registration is required.  

Additional information, including fact sheets and measure specifications, is available on the proposed rule web page.