In the beginning of March, we wrote about The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act’s (HITECH Act) provisions within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The HITECT Act establishes additional government and agency involvement in setting policy, standards, specifications, and criteria for Health Information Technology (HRT) and Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems.

HIT Policy Committee is tasked with advising the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on implementation of a national health information network. The policy recommendations will address standards, specifications, and certification criteria, including authentication, privacy, and security of individually identifiable health information. Federal officials have made 16 of at least 20 appointments to the Health Information Technology Policy Committee.

Infosec professionals will be interested in reading that LaTanya Sweeney, director of the Data Privacy Lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, will be representing health information privacy and security experts as a committee member.

Congratulations to Judith Faulkner, president and CEO at Epic Systems Corp., Verona, Wis., with her appointment representing information technology vendors.

To read more about other committee appointments, check out the article at:

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/NHIN-28009-1.html