NIST to study health IT exchange standards, test methods

The National Institute of Standards and Technology plans to test various health information exchange standards to see how well they meet the needs of clinical information exchange among providers and other health care organizations.

Standards are the foundation for health information exchange, according to Dr. David Blumenthal, the national health IT coordinator. The HITECH Act assigned NIST, an agency of the Commerce Department, a role to study and test technical standards. As a part of its Health Information Technology Standards and Test Methods Project, NIST said it will examine high priority standards for "maturity, robustness, stability and suitability of a particular standard for use," according to a Feb. 22 announcement seeking contractor support for the program. NIST will examine the methods used to test the standards for their feasibility, ability to put into practice and whether the standard is specific enough for a provider to calculate and report clinical data quality measures. The selected contractors will also develop test material, data and standard-specific test tools for high priority standards and interoperability.