Office of the National Coordinator Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) was established on April 27, 2004 by Executive Order #13335 issued by President Bush. ONCHIT establishes the position of National Health Information Technology Coordinator within the Department of Health & Human Services. Click here to view the Executive Order.

“On November 15, the Office of the National Coordinator Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) released a Request for Information (RFI) that seeks public comment regarding how widespread interoperability of health information technologies and health information exchange can be achieved through a National Health Information Network (NHIN).

As the nation embarks on the widespread deployment of EHRs, a variety of concomitant challenges and barriers must be addressed. One of these is interoperability, or the ability to exchange patient health information among disparate clinicians and other authorized entities in real time and under stringent security, privacy and other protections. Through the RFI, ONCHIT seeks information regarding options to deploy, operate and sustain health information exchange. There are many perspectives that can be brought to bear on this important topic. Health information technology organizations, healthcare providers, industry associations and other stakeholders all have important insights that will inform future deliberation.

In the interest of having the most compelling, complete, and thorough responses possible, we encourage interested parties to collaborate and submit unified responses to this RFI wherever possible. Comments from the public at large are also invited. The public comment period is 60 days and expires on January 18, 2005. The RFI is available through ONCHIT’s website ([DOC – 60KB]). While we provide this document on our website, the document that we publish in the Federal Register is the official ONCHIT publication and can be found here. We look forward to your response.”