Project [email protected] Technical Specification Final Version 1.0 Now Available
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), in collaboration with standards development organizations (SDOs) and health IT stakeholders, today released the Project [email protected] (‘Project USA’) Technical Specification Final Version 1.0. This new specification is a unified, cross-standards, health care specification that could be used across industry for representing patient addresses (mailing, physical, billing, etc.) to improve patient matching.
Patient matching and specifically how patient addresses are represented has long been viewed as a critical component of nationwide interoperability and the nation’s health IT infrastructure. The availability of a unified, cross-SDO specification is a testament to the broad industry engagement behind this effort. Now that a specification exists, ONC encourages state and federal agencies, public health organizations, payers, health IT developers, research organizations, health care providers, and all other interested stakeholders to consider adopting and implementing the final specification.
“A standardized patient address might seem like a small thing, but that’s precisely why this work was important. Improving the accuracy and consistency of addresses will have a big impact if implemented at scale,” said Steve Posnack, deputy national coordinator for health IT. “I am grateful to the SDOs, federal partners, and health IT stakeholders who all joined in to rapidly develop this new specification.”
Also available today is the Project [email protected] Companion Guide developed by and in collaboration with the American Health Information Management Association. This resource provides operational best practices related to accurate and timely capture and management of patient addresses developed in Project [email protected] Technical Specification Final Version 1.0.
A draft Technical Specification Version 1.0 was released for comment in June 2021 and SDO’s collected input during a 30-day comment period in July 2021. Nearly 130 comments were received from stakeholders and the public, informing the Final Version 1.0 released today. This completes ONC’s goal to complete Project [email protected] by early 2022.
More information about Project [email protected] can be found on the Project [email protected] page.
Originally published at https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2022/01/07/hhs-led-initiative-releases-unified-specification-for-patient-addresses-in-health-care.html
