Operating under a contract administered by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONCHIT), the HITSP was formed in 2005 to harmonize the standards required to enable an interoperable healthcare data network.
Initial work has focused on the areas of biosurveillance, consumer empowerment, and electronic healthcare records – the three initial use cases identified by the American Health Information Community (AHIC).
The ninety standards were identified by the Panel as being relevant and suitable for further consideration. The next HITSP deliverable, due in late September 2006, calls for detailed interoperability specifications to support each use case.
More than 190 organizations representing consumers, healthcare providers, public health agencies, government agencies, standards development organizations and other stakeholders participate on the HITSP and assisted in shaping the recommended list of standards.
HITSP members have worked together to develop an open, transparent process for standards harmonization based on objective criteria, said Dr John Halamka, chair of the HITSP and CIO of Harvard Medical School. Our next task will be to produce the detailed standards guides, called interoperability specifications that will enable the creation of a secure information superhighway for healthcare.
