Future of Info-Exchange Standards Debated

The federal Health IT Standards Committee received an abundance of comments along with a report from a work group reviewing a set of 12 specifications for information sharing to be used in the proposed nationwide health information network, or NwHIN. Dr. Farzad Mostashari, head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, set a tone of heightened expectation before the report was delivered.

"I think we're at a critical juncture now, whether we step forward, or say we're just not ready, or how big a step we take forward," Mostashari said. At issue was a set of recommendations in a report from the committee's NwHIN power team, whose scope of work became a key part of the controversy...