Changes at Health IT Policy Committee and FDASIA Update

There were some changes announced in the membership of the Health IT Policy Committee (HITPC) at the May 5, 2014 meeting. Three departing members who have been with the HITPC from the beginning are:

• Neil Calman, M.D., CEO of the Institute for Family Health, one of the largest networks of community health centers in New York State;
• Judy Faulkner, CEO of Epic Systems;
• Art Davidson, M.D., director of Public Health Informatics for Denver Public Health

The three new members replacing them are:

• Christoph U. Lehmann, M.D., the founding medical director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Child Health Informatics Center and a professor in Pediatrics and Biomedical Informatics at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, as an expert on vulnerable populations;
• Neal Patterson, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Cerner Corp. as a vendor representative;
• Kim J. Schofield, health educator and advocacy chair for the Lupus Foundation of America’s Georgia Chapter, representing consumers and patients.

Notable is the departure of the Epic CEO, Judy Faulkner, being replaced by the Cerner CEO, Neal Patterson as a vendor representative. They also received an update from the FDASIA workgroup.

HIT Policy Committee FDASIA Update

Next weeks very important Proposed Risk-Based Regulatory Framework and Strategy for Health IT Workshop convened by the FDA should provide even greater clarity into the development of the Health IT Safety Center and important development of potential regulations for software which falls into the Health Management Functionality category.

Karen DeSalvo also announced during the meeting that new workgroups are being formed. The ONC is Congressionally mandated to update its Health IT strategic plan, and will be adjusting its organizational structure and creating new workgroups to align with overall goals and available resources. The categories for new workgroups are being formed along:

• Health IT Strategic Planning
• Advanced Health Models and Meaningful Use
• Interoperability & Health Information Exchange (HIE)
• Health IT Implementation, Usability and Safety
• Privacy and Security
• Consumer

The HIT Strategic Planning and Interoperability & HIE Workgroups will begin forming first, followed by the Advanced Health Models and Meaningful Use and Health IT Implementation, Usability and Safety Workgroups later this year. For now the activities of the Privacy/Security and Consumer groups will continue as planned.