Health IT panel awaits public comment on standards rules

When the public gets its chance to comment on upcoming meaningful use rules, an advisory health IT panel will know if they got the standards piece of the entitlement package right. The Health IT Standards Committee will weigh those comments before producing final recommendations for 2011 meaningful use requirements to the Office for the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), said John Halamka, vice chairman of the committee, at its final meeting for the year. "The comments that follow release of the meaningful use rule will guide the committee if they need to revise them," he said. "We won't know what is simple and good enough until the regulation comes out." Halamka is also chief information officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. ONC is expected to publish an interim final rule on certification standards for meaningful use by the end of the month. In the meantime, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will separately propose rules defining meaningful use and provider eligibility for incentives under the HITECH Act. In a wrap-up of its standards work Dec. 18, Halamka said the committee tried to walk a middle course by recommending standards that were general enough that small and large organizations could incorporate them but which still meet health IT requirements under the health IT stimulus law.