The ONC Annual Meeting is February 2-3, 2015. It is being broadcast live HERE.
National Coordinator and Acting Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Karen DeSalvo's opening remarks and HHS Secretary Burwell's comments are below:
Dr. DeSalvo:
Last year, when I stood before this ONC Annual Meeting I was just a few days into my tenure as National Coordinator, I was literally fresh off the farm. I shared with you my perspectives as a daughter, as a doctor being as a public health leader and what we had done in post Katrina New Orleans learning how health IT would make a difference in care and public health. I had just purchased an EHR for a hospital we were constructing and have been through three implementations of a health record in the clinical care environment in the outpatient setting and still using EHR's in the practice of medicine. That day I said we would look at how health IT would be a key ingredient in reforming our nation's healthcare system, including focusing on how it would support payment reform and how payment reform would support health IT, I said we would break down barriers and silos that were holding in data and focus on interoperability and save lives to improve the public health. I told you we would risen to everyone's ideas about how to rairpz the floor for health and health information in this nation. I want to remind you all of what we've accomplished in this last year at ONC and HHS with our federal partners, with our private sector collaborators, and with many of you in this room. It's truly been an all hands on deck effort and the work is just beginning.
