ONC: 65% Toward REC Provider Goal

Parsons also noted another challenge that providers faced was collecting race and ethnicity on every patient. “It’s not an easy conversation for your front desk person to have,” she said. “When you ask about race and ethnicity it can become uncomfortable, so there have to be good workflows in place to do that.”

Kendall noted that on a federal level, rural healthcare, especially linking primary care physicians and specialty care, is difficult to address. This is why his office is creating a supplemental program to address critical access hospitals because the ONC recognizes them as a priority. Other challenges his office is facing are systems hurdles like sharing data from laboratories, which the ONC seeks to remedy by publicizing tools like its DIRECT Project that allows providers to make point-to-point connections to share data for patient care.

“You need to really leverage economies of scale to help the provider,” said Kendall. “You need to drive toward quality. Having [local projects are] an amazingly powerful tools for us, the same way having meaningful use for us will be powerful for the extension centers. It helps add focus. Healthcare is so complicated, and if you don’t have goals, and standardize things, it’s a lot more challenging.”