– HHS announces San Diego Regional Health Information Exchange and The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) as awardees of the LEAP in Health IT funding opportunity.
– Awardees projects will focus on advancing health IT interoperability to improve healthcare for patients nationwide.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) today announced two awards under the Leading Edge Acceleration Projects in Health Information Technology (LEAP in Health IT) funding opportunity. The LEAP in Health IT awardees play a critical role in advancing the development and use of interoperable health information technology (health IT) and ultimately in improving healthcare for all Americans.
What is LEAP in Health IT?
The LEAP in Health IT projects address fast emerging and future challenges to advance the development and use of interoperable health IT. It is critical that the field of healthcare innovate and leverage the latest technological advancements and breakthroughs far quicker than it currently does to optimize real-time solutions, especially in areas that are ripe for acceleration. To do so, these projects will further a new generation of health IT development and inform the innovative implementation and refinement of standards, methods, and techniques for overcoming major barriers and challenges as they are identified.
LEAP in Health IT Focus Areas
The two new LEAP in Health IT awardees will address fast emerging and future challenges to advance the development and use of interoperable health IT. The SEN solicited applications focused on one of two areas of interest:
1) Standardization and Implementation of Scalable Health Level 7 International’s (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) Consent Resource
2) Design, Develop and Demonstrate Enhanced Patient Engagement Technologies for Care and Research.
Here is a look at 2019’s LEAP in Health awardees:
San Diego Regional Health Information Exchange dba San Diego Health Connect
Award Amount: $999,683
Project Description: San Diego Regional HIE will focus on software development and research of standards, use case and community testing, production deployment, pilots, tutorials, and population health, and consent management. They will also develop and make available an FHIR Consent Implementation Guide (IG) and package of open-source prototypes and content to assist partners in using the FHIR Consent Resource.
Principal Investigator: Mohammad Jafir
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), Austin, TX
Award Amount: $999,287
Project Description: UT Austin will develop and test a patient-engagement platform to support an ecosystem of mobile applications (apps) intended to enhance opportunities for underrepresented populations to better participate in health research and care, that addresses patient security and privacy needs, utilizing user-centered design approaches and will allow for appropriate data sharing from disparate sources across patients, clinicians, and researchers.
Principal Investigator: Anjum Khurshid
Why It Matters
“These projects will make it easier for our increasingly complex healthcare system to leverage the latest technological advancements and breakthroughs more quickly and to enable real-time solutions to healthcare challenges,” said Don Rucker, national coordinator for health information technology.
