Federal health IT investments have transformed care delivery, but their impact on enabling health research is not well understood.

Over the past two decades, the federal government has made major investments in the digitization of health care—from incentivizing adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) to establishing standards for data exchange and interoperability. These efforts, led by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), have reshaped how health information flows across the care system.

One significant but underexplored consequence of this transformation is its impact on health research. Digitized health data now support studies ranging from drug safety surveillance to health disparities analysis—research that was not feasible in the era of paper records. ONC needed to understand how its policies and programs have enabled this growing body of research, both to inform future initiatives and to articulate the broader returns on federal health IT investment.

NORC synthesized information across 122 sources that discussed two decades of health IT policy and research.

We designed and executed a targeted environmental scan to understand how ONC’s policies and programs have enabled the use of EHR data for research. The scan encompassed peer-reviewed and gray literature, ONC policies and programs, and high-impact studies that relied on EHR data, ultimately referencing 122 sources.

Our team’s familiarity with the evolution of federal health IT policy over the past two decades—from the HITECH Act’s EHR incentive programs to current interoperability standards—enabled efficient identification of the most relevant information sources.