The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information
Technology (ONCHIT) wants management consulting assistance to develop a process
to harmonize standards. Those standards would facilitate interoperability among
health care software applications, particularly systems for e-health records.
In a related development, officials at the national coordinator's
office and the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research are seeking consulting
services to help evaluate state laws and health care provider business policies
that could pose challenges to the development of an automated health information
exchange. Officials at the two agencies said they expect to issue 40 contracts
for this work and anticipate making the awards by Sept. 30.
Those planned solicitations dovetail with HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt's
500-day plan for the department, which Leavitt released earlier this month. The
plan calls for the agency to develop a national effort to "develop, set and
certify health information technology standards and outcomes for
interoperability, privacy and data exchange."
ONCHIT officials said they plan to award six contracts in fiscal 2006
for the National Health Information Network architecture and one three-year
contract with a one-year option for the certification process by the end of
September. They added that they plan to award one contact with the same
structure for the health care IT standards consulting
contract.
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