I participated in a conference call this morning with David Blumenthal, M.D. National Coordinator for Health Information Technology where he dicussed of the HIT Standards and Policy Committees and named the members of these important groups.
I even was able to ask Dr. Blumenthal a question regarding the work of the HIT Standards Committee and how much influence the previous work of groups like NeHAC and HITSP would have on thei efforts. He indicated that they were not interested in reinventing the wheel and the committee included a broad range of stakeholders, including providers, ancillary healthcare workers, consumers, purchasers, health plans, technology vendors, researchers, relevant Federal agencies, and individuals with technical expertise on health care quality, privacy and security, and on the electronic exchange and use of health information. I was thrilled to learn that John Halamka, M.D. Chief Information Officer and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School was named Vice Chairperson to this important committee.
The 23 HIT Standards Committee members are as follows:
- Jonathan Perlin, Hospital Corporation of America
- John Halamka, Harvard Medical School
- Dixie Baker, Science Applications International Corporation
- Anne Castro, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina
- Christopher Chute, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
- Janet Corrigan, National Quality Forum
- John Derr, Golden Living, LLC
- Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
- James Ferguson, Kaiser Permanente
- Steven Findlay, Consumers Union
- Douglas Fridsma, Arizona Biomedical Collaborataive
- C. Martin Harris, Cleveland Clinic Foundation
- Stanley M. Huff, Intermountain Healthcare
- Kevin Hutchinson, Prematics, Inc.
- Elizabeth O. Johnson, Tenet Healthcare Corporation
- John Klimek, National Council for Prescription Drug Programs
- David McCallie, Jr., Cerner Corporation
- Judy Murphy, Aurora Health Care
- J. Marc Overhage, Regenstrief Institute
- Gina Perez, Delaware Health Information Network
- Wes Rishel, Gartner, Inc.
- Sharon Terry, Genetic Alliance
- James Walker, Geisinger Health System
The 20 HIT Policy Committee members, established under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, are as follows:
- David Blumenthal, HHS/Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
- David Bates, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
- Christine Bechtel, National Partnership for Women & Families
- Neil Calman, The Institute for Family Health
- Richard Chapman, Kindred Healthcare
- Adam Clark, Lance Armstrong Foundation
- Arthur Davidson, Denver Public Health Department
- Connie White Delaney, University of Minnesota/School of Nursing
- Paul Egerman, Businessman/Entrepreneur
- Judith Faulkner, Epic Systems Corporation
- Gayle Harrell, Former Florida State Legislator
- Charles Kennedy, WellPoint, Inc.
- Michael Klag, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health
- David Lansky, Pacific Business Group on Health
- Deven McGraw, Center for Democracy & Technology
- Frank Nemec, Gastroenterology Associates, Inc.
- Marc Probst, Intermountain Healthcare
- Latanya Sweeney, Carnegie Mellon University
- Paul Tang, Palo Alto Medical Foundation
- Scott White, 1199 SEIU Training and Employment Fund
I look forward to seeing these excellent groups progress and I am extremely hopeful that we will see incredible results from their efforts.
At the conference call Blumenthal announced appointments to the two advisory committees created under the stimulus legislation. The Health Information Technology Policy Committee will recommend policies for developing national “infrastructure” for exchanging health information in systems that are “interoperable” and “talk” to each other. The committee will also advise on “standards for the secure and private exchange of patient medical information.”
ReplyDeleteThe second is the HIT Standards Committee, which will make recommendations to Blumenthal on certification criteria for IT systems and the use of health information.
“The certification process is under review,” said Blumenthal when asked about the future role of “CCHIT,” the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, which has overseen certification efforts thus far. “There was a complicated committee structure in the past,” he said, calling the decision by Congress to create the two new committees “a wise one.” Blumenthal said he doesn’t see the two new committees as duplicative of previous advisory panels, describing the new committees as having a broad policy role.
Blumenthal also said he expects to announce in late spring or early summer the details of a $2 billion grant program to help develop a health IT workforce, to foster use of health IT to improve public health activities such as disease monitoring and tracking of pharmaceutical side effects, and “geographic exchange” of data across organizations and offices of individual doctors.