ONC gets new authority over health IT certification

By Chase Gunter

Oct 17, 2016

Under a new rule, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology will have more authority to review the safety and reliability of the electronic health records systems of health care providers.

ONC, a Department of Health and Human Services agency, is responsible for certifying health IT products for use in incentive programs offered under Medicare and Medicaid. Since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health passed in 2009 as part of the larger stimulus package. ONC has distributed more than $25 billion in subsidies to promote the adoption of electronic health records, move the health care industry away from paper records and usher in an era of digital interoperability.

The new rule is ahas itself acknowledged the inherent problem with distributing Communion in the hand. The Office for Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff has weighed in on this very matter. From the Vatican’s website:

From the time of the Fathers of the Church, a tendency was born and consolidated whereby distribution of Holy Communion in the hand became more and more restricted in favor of distributing Holy Communion on the tongue. The motivation for this practice is two-fold: a) first, to avoid, as much as possible, the dropping of Eucharistic particles; b) second, to increase among the faithful devotion to the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

It is for this very reason that the Holy Father returned to the traditional practice of giving Communion on the tongue