ONC Releases 2023 Interoperability Standards Advisory Reference Edition

ONC has released the 2023 Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) Reference Edition, which reflects more than 150 comments received by ONC during a 60-day public comment period.

The ISA is ONC’s catalog of health interoperability data standards and implementation specifications that reflects feedback from industry and federal agencies.

ONC updates the web version of the ISA regularly with changes in the health IT standards environment or when the agency receives public comments throughout the year. The Reference Edition is a snapshot of the ISA web version that ONC compiles at the end of the year following a public comment period.

Additions to the 2023 ISA Reference Edition include:

Standards Version Advancement Process (SVAP) Integration

ONC strengthened linkages with SVAP by identifying previous versions of national coordinator-approved standards and adding the latest versions of 2022 Approved Standards.

SVAP helps health IT developers incorporate newer versions of secretary-adopted standards and implementation specifications as part of the ‘Real World Testing’ Condition and Maintenance of Certification requirement from ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule.

Pharmacy Interoperability

ONC consolidated interoperability needs for safe and informed prescribing, medication management, and medication data exchange into a broader subsection titled “Pharmacy Interoperability.”

ONC also updated the ISA Pharmacy Interoperability pages in response to public comments and added National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) SCRIPT Standard Implementation Guide Version 2022011 to relevant pages.

Human and Social Services

Incorporating industry feedback, ONC added interoperability needs related to Information and Referral (I&R) Services in a new Human and Social Services subsection and an existing Resource Location. These standards enable healthcare provider referrals with human and social services.

Adverse Event Reporting

Working with FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) Biologics Effectiveness and Safety (BEST) Initiative, ONC added an interoperability need in the Public Health Reporting section called “Adverse Event Reporting,” which contains a BEST implementation guide.

Additional Updates

ONC added new interoperability needs and standards to the Laboratory subsections in the ISA’s Vocabulary/Code Set/Terminology and Content/Structure sections.

ONC also included a new Infrastructure subsection in the Services/Exchange section to outline emerging data standards and implementation guides based on the work of the HL7 FHIR accelerator FHIR at Scale Taskforce and Unified Data Access Profiles (UDAP).