Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Alex Kontur wrote in a Blog entry On August 19th, The Undersecretary of Technological Policy (ASTP) It should ensure that standards are established that support federal policy objectives and enable developers to create interoperable health IT products.
Kontur explained that the development and adoption of healthcare standards included a series of cooperative agreements between ASTP and International health level seven (HL7)which began in 2015. “This collaboration has supported the development and growth of crucial health IT standards incorporated by ASTP regulations and the ONC Health Information Technology Certification Programas well as tools and resources for the HL7 standards development community.”
“ASTP funds the continued development of HL7 standards such as the Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) and FHIR US Core IG (US Core),” Kontur said. In addition, Kontur continued, ASTP also supports the Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture of HL7. Gender Harmony Projectwhich guides the exchange of clinical information about sex and gender affirmation using HL7 standards. The Gender Harmony project addresses the common problem of health IT systems often capturing information about sex and gender in a single data element.
