HIT Standards Committee; Schedule for the Assessment of HIT Policy Committee Recommendations

AGENCY:

Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, HHS.

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

Section 3003(b)(3) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 mandates that the HIT Standards Committee develop a schedule for the assessment of policy recommendations developed by the HIT Policy Committee and publish it in the Federal Register. This notice fulfills the requirements of Section 3003(b)(3) and updates the schedule posted in the Federal Register on April 11, 2012. In anticipation of receiving recommendations originally developed by the HIT Policy Committee, the HIT Standards Committee has created six (6) workgroups to analyze the areas of clinical quality, clinical operations, implementation, consumer technology, nationwide health information networks and privacy and security. Other groups will be convened to address specific issues as needed.

HIT Standards Committee's Schedule for the Assessment of HIT Policy Committee Recommendations is as follows:

The National Coordinator will establish priority areas based in part on recommendations received from the HIT Policy Committee regarding health information technology standards, implementation specifications, and/or certification criteria. Once the HIT Standards Committee is informed of those priority areas, it will:

(A) Direct the appropriate workgroup or other special group to develop a report for the HIT Standards Committee, to the extent possible, within 90 days, which will include, among other items, the following:

(1) An assessment of what standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria are currently available to meet the priority area;

(2) an assessment of where gaps exist (i.e., no standard is available or harmonization is required because more than one standard exists) and identify potential organizations that have the capability to address those gaps; and

(3) a timeline, which may also account for NIST testing, where appropriate, and include dates when the HIT Standards Committee is expected to issue recommendation(s) to the National Coordinator.

(B) Upon receipt of a report from a workgroup or other special group, the HIT Standards Committee will:

(1) accept the timeline provided by the subcommittee, and, if necessary, revise it; and

(2) assign subcommittee(s) to conduct research and solicit testimony, where appropriate, and issue recommendations to the full committee in a timely manner.

(C) Advise the National Coordinator, consistent with the accepted timeline in (B)(1) and after NIST testing, where appropriate, on standards, implementation specifications, and/or certification criteria, for the National Coordinator's review and determination whether or not to endorse the recommendations, and possible adoption of the proposed recommendations by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The standards and related topics which the HIT Standards Committee is expected to address over the coming year include, but may not be limited to standards to support: Transport of data to and from patients, image exchange, current content gaps, securing data at rest, digital signature, longitudinal record sharing, advanced care preferences, application programming interfaces, measuring and reporting quality, clinical decision support, defect reporting and registry support.

For a listing of upcoming HIT Standards Committee meetings, please visit the ONC Web site at http://healthit.gov.

Notice of this schedule is given under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. L. 111-5), section 3003.