Once the Administrative Simplification standards have been adopted, the health care community will be encouraged to notify the Department or the NCVHS in writing or through our respective web sites of any issues or concerns with the implementation of the new standards. In addition, the Committee will conduct a number of public hearings to obtain additional input from a broad cross section of users in both the public and private sectors. Based on this input, the Committee will notify HHS of any problems that are presented and will provide recommendations on how to deal with those problems.
The statute requires the Secretary of HHS to review the standards and adopt modifications to those standards (including additions to the standards), as appropriate, but not more frequently than once every 12 months. The Committee will seek input from the public on additional standards or modifications to existing standards that may be needed and will provide timely recommendations to the Secretary.
The Committee will request timely reports on the status of standards implementation from Federal and State agencies for the health care programs under their jurisdiction. These agencies and representatives from the private sector will be asked also to provide public testimony at NCVHS hearings, where appropriate, at which they will be asked to indicate the extent of standards usage that they have observed.
We will also ask the applicable standards development organizations to provide regular status reports on the status of implementation of the new standards. We would also encourage them to provide advice as to how to increase the rate of compliance, if necessary.
Since security is a primary concern to the public, the industry, and the Committee, we will ask the appropriate private sector certifying bodies to monitor the status of the security measures that will be put in place and to ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to protect individually identifiable information.
In addition to these status reports and public hearings, the Committee will make substantial use of industry sources that provide information on and analyses of major trends in the application of information technology in health care. This information will include major trends in applying electronic data interchange; the development of computer networks; the growth of computer-based patient records; and trends in automation in health care organizations.
The Committee is charged to make sound recommendations on health information policy to the Executive and Legislative Branches of our nation's government. To accomplish this end, the NCVHS needs to draw upon all available reports and recommendations in order to develop a vision of the future relating to data needs for quality, costs and access to care as well as for the information infrastructure needed for both health care delivery and management.
To date, efforts to implement the Administrative Simplification provisions of HIPAA and to adopt standards stand apart from other government activity in several ways. They differ in:
In summary, the process of adopting health data standards has been extremely open, collaborative, and productive. The success of the process up to this point bodes well for the ultimate success of the implementation of these standards. The Committee is committed to improving the national health information infrastructure needed to enhance quality and access to care and reduce costs.
NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON VITAL AND HEALTH STATISTICS
First Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Administrative Simplification Provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
February 3, 1998