Health Care Vendors Implement HITSP Interoperability Standards

March 28, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS

Operating under contract to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the HITSP worked since 2005 to define the technical standards necessary to assure the interoperability of electronic health records in the U.S.

Priorities for the panel's work are established by the American Heath Information Community (AHIC).

In January 2007, the HHS accepted the HITSP's first set of recommended standards, known as "interoperability specifications (IS)," addressing needs in the areas of :

• Electronic health records (EHR) such as the electronic delivery of lab results to providers of care.
• Biosurveillance such as data networks supporting the rapid alert to a disease outbreak.
• Consumer empowerment such as giving patients the ability to manage and control access to their registration and medication histories.

In January 2008 following a one-year period of implementation testing, the HHS recognized the standards. Agencies administering or sponsoring federal health programs are required to implement the standards.

Three additional sets of HITSP IS - Emergency Responder-Electronic Health Records; Consumer Access to Clinical Information; and Quality - were accepted by the HHS for implementation testing in January 2008.

A new IS on medications management is expected to be approved by the panel. Upon approval, the IS will be submitted to the HHS for acceptance.

New work was also launched to address interoperability needs in six additional areas including:

• Personalized health.
• Transfer of care.
• Remote monitoring.
• Secure communications between patients and providers.
• Public health case reporting.
• Immunizations and response.

The 36 health care vendors who worked on the standards include:

Source: American National Standards Institute (ANSI).