Federal Advisors Seek Advice

Two federal health information technology advisory committees are seeking public comment by Dec. 23 on issues related to development of a Standards and Interoperability Framework that would create a repeatable process to improve interoperability, and concepts for future meaningful use clinical quality measures.

The HIT Standards Committee has a number of questions regarding the criteria to evaluate initiatives that could use the framework. The criteria are grouped into four categories: importance/relevance, feasibility, usability, and evidence-based medicine and research support.

The HIT Policy Committee's quality measures workgroup will recommend new clinical quality measures for Stages 2 and 3 of meaningful use. Its work has been split into five domains: patient and family engagement, clinical appropriateness/efficiency, care coordination, patient safety, and population and public health. Members of five workgroup teams have already proposed measure concepts for each of the domains. The workgroup then revised and consolidated the concepts and now seeks public comment.

Both requests for information are posted on the Federal Advisory Committee Blog, at http://healthit.hhs.gov/blog/faca/.

--Joseph Goedert