Health IT Standards Committee Discusses Stimulus Provisions

The initial meeting of the HIT Standards Committee was held Friday, May 15. Much of the initial work by the new committee will be focused on reviewing earlier work done by its precursor, the Health Information Technology Standards Panel, according to John Halamka, a physician informaticist who serves as chairman of the HITSP and vice chairman of the new HIT Standards Committee. Halamka is the chief information officer at CareGroup Healthcare System, Boston. Also, the new HIT Standards Panel members will be trying to anticipate and work in advance of policy recommendations around the recommendations of another stimulus act-mandated advisory panel, the HIT Policy Committee, that first met earlier this week. Both groups are working under a deadline contained in the stimulus act that an initial set of standards, implementation specifications and certification criteria go through federal rulemaking and be published by HHS by Dec. 31 of this year.