Four of the five witnesses at a congressional hearing today raised concerns about shifting federal health information technology responsibilities from the Health and Human Services Department to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
They were commenting on a bill introduced by Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) that would give NIST a leading role in setting standards, developing interoperability road maps, and coordinating federal research and development relating to health IT.
When Gordon, chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, introduced the bill in May, he said, “current federal efforts have made slow progress in this arena, and in this age of rapid technological advancement, that’s unacceptable. This bill, and the development of interoperability specifications, is the logical first step in deploying and utilizing IT in our health system.”
Witnesses at today's hearing agreed that progress has been slow and said they welcomed assistance from NIST in some aspects of standards harmonization and testing for conformance.
But they also praised the achievements of the Health IT Standards Panel in harmonizing conflicting and overlapping standards, and they urged Gordon not to tinker with it much.
For example, Justin Barnes, vice president of marketing and government affairs at e-health records vendor Greenway Medical Technologies, said, “it is crucial that influential bodies like Congress, the president’s administration and NIST work together to maintain this impetus and not create a new, alternative de facto testing, standard or certification authority.”
Testifying for the American Hospital Association, Noel Williams, senior vice president and chief information officer of the Hospital Corporation of America, said, “we are concerned that there are already too many overlapping, duplicative efforts launched by the government to try to speed health care IT adoption.”
Williams said "these organizations lack coordination, a common vision for the future of health IT, a road map and timeline for change, and a detailed implementation plan that articulates each stakeholder’s roles and responsibilities. We are afraid that H.R. 2406 could position NIST as just another government entity with overlapping responsibility without addressing the key needs.”
Only Dr. David Silverstone, a Connecticut ophthalmologist representing the Alliance of Specialty Medicine, said the bill should become law in its current form. Silverstone called it “a necessary and essential step in deploying and utilizing IT effectively and efficiently in our health care system.”
Linda Kloss, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the American Health Information Management Association, said the Health IT Standards Panel suffers from relying on volunteers and may encounter funding shortages. But, she said, “they have provided a significant boost toward interoperability.”
The hearing was unusual because such hearings often are designed to present only enthusiastic support for the bill being discussed.
From the battlefield to the home front: Managing medical data
Government Health IT presents Col. Claude Hines Jr., program manager for the Defense Health Information Management System, in this recent InSight eSeminar. Col. Hines discusses the health information technology and tactical challenges faced by the military medical community in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict. In doing so, he describes the current information technology solutions for transferring clinical data between battlefield care givers to health care personnel at military treatment facilities worldwide.
