Morning Headlines 4/28/15

Health Information Technology: Where We Stand And Where We Need To Go

National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo, MD publishes an article in Health Affairs on the early successes, current state, and future roles that health IT will take on in care delivery, specifically addressing interoperability, and IT goals that go beyond EHRs and Meaningful Use.

Advancing Breakthrough Devices for Patients Act

Senators Richard Burr, Michael Bennet and Orrin Hatch introduce a new bill that creates an expedited path to FDA pre-market approval for new breakthrough healthcare technologies. The bill is modeled after the 2012 Breakthrough Therapies for Patients Act which created the same expedited pathway for new breakthrough drugs.

DoD To Start Its Own Digital Service Team

The DoD will open new offices in Silicon Valley where it is building its own digital services team modeled after the White House tech team that was responsible for resurrecting Healthcare.gov in its early days. The new team, some of which has already been recruited, are currently working on solving data exchange problems between the DoD and VA EHRs.