Update on the Federal Health Architecture

At the February 6, 2013 HIT Policy meeting Lauren Thompson, PhD the Director of the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) within the Office of Science and Technology at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology gave an excellent overview of the FHA program. The FHA program is a partnership among Federal Agencies to advance health information interoperability among Federal Agencies, and the tribal, state, local and private sectors. Through FHA, Federal agencies have joined together to implement government-wide solutions for interoperable and secure health information exchange. The FHA serves in a coordinating and convening role, facilitating collaboration in military and Veterans healthcare, public health monitoring, disability services, tribal health services and many other critical Federal priorities. As Director of FHA, Lauren has been instrumental in energizing the Federal health community around common goals of establishing a cross-agency, strategically-focused governance structure, creating an interoperability architecture aligned with nationwide health information technology goals, evolving the CONNECT architecture toward an open source governance model driven by common standards and specifications, and more expansive outreach and communication with the Nationwide Health Information Exchange community.