A Weekly Update on the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

North Carolina HIT Strategic Planning Task Force
Please note that the May 18 meeting of the NC HIT Strategic Planning Task Force has been canceled. The next meeting is scheduled for June 1 from 9:00 am - 12:30 pm. All meetings are opened to the public. You are encouraged to arrive early, as seating is very limited. For further details, visit http://ncrecovery.gov/calendar/publicMeetings.aspx.

Below are higlights of the May 11 meeting of the Task Force (click here to view the agenda):

• Ron Mitchell (CIO of Wake Radiology) and Holt Anderson (Executive Director of NCHICA) presented the initial draft the white paper, A Proposed Architecture for Statewide HIE Capability for the State of NC. The paper was developed by the NC HIE Council's Technical & Operations Committee. Click here to view the paper, and click here to view their presentation. Comments on the white paper are due by this Friday, May 15, 2009 to Andrew Weniger at andrew@nchica.org.
• Lee Dixon (NC General Assembly) described the current components of Senate Bill 202, The Appropriations Act of 2009, and its emphasis on governance was reviewed.
• Attendees divided into three workgroups at the direction of Chair Steve Cline to address governance questions and reported back on their discussions at the end of the meeting. Significant emphasis was placed on principles of transparency, engagement of consumers, and utilization of lessons learned from prior utility experiences. Among the results:
  • All three groups recognized a need to deliver on a foundation of EMR adoption as a predecessor to extensive HIE across the state.
  • Almost all attendees concurred that the concepts of consumer-based "personal health repositories" and network approaches to support nationwide organizations like CMS are complementary.
  • Governance decisions generally are expected to be broad-based, accountable to the public, well informed and independent, and designed to improve the health and healthcare of North Carolinians.
  • Adequate consumer representation was mentioned often by the workgroups.
  • NCHICA was discussed by all three workgroups as a key contributor to the future of governance for HIT in NC.
• Norris Tolson from the NC Biotechnology Center described the approach they have taken to governance and accomplishments.

National ARRA Activities
Nationally, final appointments were made this past week to the Health IT Policy Committee and the Health IT Standards Committee. These two new federal advisory committees were established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The first meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee was held on May 11 in Washington, DC. These committees fill out the HHS structure that will significantly influence the direction of the ARRA HITECH stimulus funding for health care. Click here to see a diagram that shows the relationship among the various HHS initiatives, many of which NCHICA has participated in over the past few years.

NC HIE Council Committees
As reported above, the Technical & Operations Committee released an initial draft of a white paper entitled, A Proposed Architecture for Statewide HIE Capability for the State of NC. The Technical & Operations Committee began drafting this white paper on March 13, responding to a request from the NC HIE Council to study and recommend technical approaches to achieving secure, statewide, standards-based, electronic HIE among organizations and individuals involved in health and healthcare in NC and, when necessary, with organizations located outside of the state. This document is being published in draft form for comment by individuals and organizations that might be impacted. The Technical & Operations Committee will meet next on May 20 at the NCHICA office, and welcomes participants from the NC healthcare community.

All five committees of the NC HIE Council have meetings scheduled in the next two weeks - please join in as your interests direct you. Click here to view the meeting calendar. Details on the committees may be found at: http://www.nchica.org/NCHIE/committees.htm.

NC Education & Outreach
On May 6 NCHICA Board Chair Bill Mattern participated in a meeting at the Sheps Center on health informatics education in North Carolina. The NC HIE Council Stakeholder Relations Committee's meeting on May 19 will continue to address this topic, as well as guidance on Regional Extension Centers expected to be issued soon by Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

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