House panel passes bill on health data technology standards

Washington -- A House committee approved legislation that would make the National Institute of Standards and Technology responsible for setting federal health information technology standards and would make the institute available as a consulting body for private industry efforts.

The purpose is to speed up adoption of HIT, said Rep. Bart Gordon (D, Tenn.), who sponsored the measure.

The Oct. 24 House Science and Technology Committee vote followed a hearing last month at which HIT industry representatives questioned the need for involving NIST. Groups such as the Health Information Technology Standards Panel already are actively setting HIT standards, said General Electric Healthcare Integrated IT Solutions Vice President Michael Raymer at the hearing. NIST should play only a subordinate role, he said.

At the markup, the committee adopted several changes to the bill to indicate clearly that the institute would complement existing HIT efforts rather than commanding them. For example, language directing NIST to develop standards was changed to "participate in the development of technical standards."

"It's not up to NIST. The committee heard that loud and clear," said Don Asmonga, director of government relations for the American Health Information Management Assn., which supports the bill.

The institute would be useful at taking over work from other groups, such as the technology standards panel and the American Health Information Community, that are now setting HIT policy, Asmonga said.

"They are all volunteer organizations, [and] there is a little volunteer fatigue," he explained.

The committee also approved an amendment requiring the institute to form a task force for developing common terminologies and classifications for HIT systems.

NIST has considerable expertise in developing standards, Asmonga said. It will work in areas such as software conformance, privacy and security, and medical device communication.

The institute can do some of the testing necessary to verify that the standards work, he added, such as making sure a document can be sent electronically from one point to another with all of the data intact.

House Science and Technology Committee spokeswoman Alisha Prather said it was unclear when the House would vote on the measure. There is no companion Senate bill, she added.