Advisory group to help define medical network func

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<p>Advisory group to help define medical network functions<br />Healthcare IT News <br />By  Caroline Broder, Senior Editor  06/29/06 </p><p>(BETHESDA, MD) A key national group that advises the government on health information policy will help define an initial set of requirements to create a nationwide health information network. </p><p>The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics on Thursday began gathering public comment on the ways that such a network would function. <br />This week, four federal contractors explained their various approaches to creating prototype networks for exchanging healthcare data. The federal government last year awarded four contracts totaling $18.6 million to consortiums led by Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp., IBM and Northrop Grumman to develop prototype networks that could eventually serve as models for a nationwide health information network (NHIN). </p><p>Attendees at the two-day meeting provided input and asked questions about how the systems would support certain elements of data exchange. For example, a group that focused on care delivery organizations’ role in the networks called for a minimum set of functions, especially for privacy and security, patient identification, terminology, auditing and data quality. Another group that focused on record location functions of the NHIN suggested that the network should aim to reduce the number of results that a query for patient information would return to prevent users from having to manually sort the information. Another group suggested that the NHIN should, at a minimum, transmit care data, allergy information, medication history and lab results. </p><p>The NCVHS by the end of September will gather input and make recommendations on an initial set of functional requirements for the network. <br /></p>