The HHS Office of the National Coordinator is requesting public comments on its Request for Information (RFI) on governance of the “Nationwide Health Information Network”. The information presented requesting comments was pre-published on May 11th by the Office of the Federal Register’s Public Inspection. The RFI is expected to be published officially in the Federal Register on May 15, 2012.
The proposed governance approach includes:
- Focusing on entities that facilitate electronic health information exchange
- Providing for a set of Conditions for Trusted Exchange (CTE) in three areas such as safeguards, interoperability, and business practices
- Providing for a voluntary validation process for entities to demonstrate conformance to the CTEs and to increase provider confidence that the exchange entities meet these requirements
- Processes to regularly update and improve CTEs
- Providing for a process to classify the readiness of technical standards and implementation specifications to support interoperability CTEs
- Developing approaches to monitor and provide transparent oversight
In order to receive the best input from all stakeholders on governance issues that HHS is considering, the RFI includes many questions about these proposals. The public comment period closes 30 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register.
HHS encourages all stakeholders, including consumers and patients to provide feedback on these proposals. Go to www.healthit.gov/buzz-blog and click on the latest blog posts where the pre- publication PDF version published by the Office of the Federal Register’s Public Inspection is available.
