The Pew Charitable Trusts sent comments on June 20 to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology urging it to strengthen data exchange between health care providers and public health agencies.
Specifically, Pew called for improvements to policies governing data sharing on immunizations and case reporting of certain illnesses—such as infectious diseases or foodborne outbreaks—two important categories of information that can help agencies more effectively respond to disease outbreaks.