§300jj–13 Setting priorities for standards adoption

Summary

The National Coordinator must, within 6 months after the HIT Advisory Committee first meets and then on a regular basis, bring the committee together to pick priority uses for health information technology. These priorities cover incentive programs (like meaningful use of certified EHRs, the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, Alternative Payment Models, the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program, and other Secretary-chosen value-based programs), patient care quality, public health, clinical research, privacy and security, innovation, patient safety, usability, people’s access to their electronic health information, and other Secretary-decided items. The committee must find the existing standards and the technical rules that support sharing electronic health information for those priorities, give preference to standards made by consensus-based standards groups, work with the consensus-based entity named in section 1395aaa and other federal agencies to decide if a core set of common data elements and value sets is needed, and publish a report with its findings and recommendations. Starting 5 years after December 13, 2016, and every 3 years after that, the National Coordinator must gather stakeholders to review adopted standards and recommend whether to keep them or phase them out. Each year, the HIT Advisory Committee, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and public input, must review and publish priorities for health IT, standards, and technical rules. New or better standards may be used if they improve secure health information exchange.