HIT Policy Committee's Information Exchange Workgroup Seeks Comments

The Information Exchange Working Group (IE WG) of the Health IT Policy Committee has been charged with identifying and recommending solutions to barriers standing in the way of rapid nationwide adoption of health information exchange.

The focus is both on barriers that prevent individual health care providers from efficiently and effectively conducting health information exchange transactions, as well as on obstacles that impede States and/or State Designated Entities from being effective enablers of health information exchange. Provider Directories will be a key enabler of nationwide health information exchange. The IE WG has been asked to investigate and make recommendations to facilitate creation of provider directories that enable universal health information exchange across the country. As part of its fact-gathering process, the IE WG will host a public hearing on September 30, 2010, in Washington DC, to hear testimony from a variety of prospective users and industry experts on: 1) obstacles to health information exchange; 2) the role that provider directories could play in addressing such obstacles; 3) the types of directories that exist in the market today; and 4) options for building a directory approach that meets the emerging health information exchange needs of health care providers.

The FACA Blog is open for comments until October 4th. Comments can be submitted online on the blog website or emailed to: judy.sparrow@hhs.gov (use "Information Exchange Workgroup" in the header and identify the question to which you are responding). Comments on the questions below will inform the continuing deliberations of the Information Exchange Workgroup as it moves toward final recommendations to the Office of the National Coordinator, Health and Human Services, on provider directories.