The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) on Oct. 28 published a new final Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability (HTI) rule: ONC Deregulatory Actions To Unleash Prosperity. This rule is informally referred to as HTI-5.
The policies in this rule focus on the ONC’s certification standards for health IT modules, removing more than a dozen of the 60 total certification requirements (scaled back from 34 proposed for removal) and revising seven others. Notably, the ONC finalized the removal of newer requirements governing the development and transparency of artificial intelligence-enabled technology within the electronic health record. The agency did not finalize any policies related to information blocking, noting that comments on those proposals remain under consideration for future rulemaking, foreshadowing the potential for an HTI-6 proposed rule. More information can be found in the ONC’s fact sheet on the rule.