Big Bucks for ONC in President's FY16 Budget Request

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology would get a huge funding increase in fiscal year 2016 under the federal government budget request that President Barack Obama sent to Congress.

Under the proposal, ONC would get $92 million in FY 16, compared with $60 million this year and in 2014. It should be noted that the Obama Administration over the years has regularly requested sizable increases for ONC, and generally hasn't gotten them. A major focus of the proposed big boost in spending is to support accelerated improvements in health information technology interoperability, which in turn would further care transformation, according to the Administration. Initiatives to be funded under the request include Stage 3 of the electronic health records program, strategic investments to support development and testing of interoperability standards and the new Interoperability Roadmap, IT support for the newly proposed Precision Medicine Imitative, and $5 million to improve the integration of prescription drug monitoring programs, particularly opiates, by leveraging health IT.