Today, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released a comprehensive Strategic Plan for advancing health information technology (HIT). The Strategic Plan is intended to serve as a guide to coordinate the federal government’s health IT efforts to achieve nationwide implementation of an interoperable health IT infrastructure throughout both the public and private sector. 

Dr. Robert Kolodner, National Coordinator for HIT, stated that the Strategic Plan "[e]stablishes the next generation of HIT milestones to harness the power of information technology to help transform health care in this country.’’ ONC also notes that objectives, strategies, and milestones have been established for each goal and portray the totality of what must be done across the federal government to:

  • address privacy and security concerns;
  • achieve an interoperable health IT architecture to ensure reliable data exchange;
  • accelerate IT adoption; and
  • foster collaborative governance. 

ONC has posted a Full Report of the 115-page Strategic Plan as well as a shorter Synopsis on its website.