On Dec. 11, healthcare thought leaders and industry luminaries will gather at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Healthcare Summit to give insight into how digital modernization, IT transformation and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence are reshaping the healthcare sector.
As one of the event’s keynote speakers, Steven Posnack, the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, will share his thoughts on funding opportunities and the recent implementation of health IT in behavioral health. You won’t want to miss out on this conversation, so secure your tickets for the 2024 Healthcare Summit now!
Steven Posnack’s Background
Posnack’s role as the ONC’s principal deputy assistant secretary involves supporting the national coordinator, facilitating the execution of missions and representing the agency’s interests at the national and international levels. He spearheads ONC’s federal coordination, public and private efforts and the implementation of standard authorities and requirements.
During his more than 15-year tenure with ONC, Posnack has developed initiatives in numerous technology and policy leadership roles, including working as the executive director of the Office of Technology, director of the Office of Standards and Technology, director of the federal policy division and a senior policy analyst.
Prior to ONC, Posnack served as a systems security intern at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Posnack’s Work in Behavioral Health
Posnack has supported numerous behavioral health IT programs during his time with the ONC, including the Health Data, Technology and Interoperability: Patient Engagement, Information Sharing and Public Health Interoperability, or HTI-1 and 2, proposed rule and the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, or TEFCA, released in April.
He also led the development of the U.S. Core Data for Interoperability task force, a standardized set of health data classes for national interoperable health information exchange. In an interview with GovCIO, Posnack discussed how these programs will transform the healthcare landscape over the next few years.
“They’ve all been various different puzzle pieces in terms of both establishing new policy and new technical infrastructure advancing some of the standard requirements that we have,” Posnack stated. “One of the big standard baseline increases that we had in the HTI-1 regulation was moving the United States Core Data for Interoperability from version one to version three as of Jan 1. 2026, so that’ll be a new step up for industry.”
Posnack’s Thoughts on AI in Healthcare
With AI becoming increasingly prevalent throughout healthcare services, Posnack also gave his thoughts on the recent surge of the capability throughout the industry and how it will affect healthcare policy.
“We are AI optimists, as our national coordinator would say. So there are a number of federal agencies within HHS that have AI responsibilities or an intersection within their mission,” Posnack said.
“We’ve included certain regulatory requirements as part of our certification program in our HTI-1 final rule,” Posnack added. “So increasing transparency and understanding the explainability and opportunity for clinical users to get a better sense of these tools that are built into the product that may not necessarily be that easy to figure out what’s going on behind the scenes.”
Steven Posnack to Keynote 2024 Healthcare Summit
Steven Posnack will deliver a keynote address on Dec. 11 to open the 2024 Healthcare Summit. The summit will feature healthcare officials discussing the role of IT and AI in the industry. Secure a seat now before it’s too late!
