On Friday, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT issued a request for information on the creation of a governance structure for the Nationwide Health Information Network, Health Data Management reports (Goedert, Health Data Management, 5/11).
Background
NwHIN is a national health IT infrastructure that aims to help health care providers exchange data.
It started as a conceptual framework, then evolved into a set of data exchange standards and later was leveraged for pilot testing (iHealthBeat, 3/16).
About the Governance Mechanism
According to an ONC presentation, the NwHIN governance mechanism will include rules on technical, business practice, privacy and security requirements to establish a common trust framework for the exchange.
The request for information specifically is seeking input on:
- The establishment of a set of Conditions for Trusted Exchange, or CTE;
- A validation process allowing participants to demonstrate compliance with CTEs;
- Procedures to update CTEs;
- Processes to classify the readiness of technical standards to support CTEs; and
- Approaches for monitoring and overseeing NwHIN.
The request for information is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on May 15 (Health Data Management, 5/11).