Federal Register Notice requiring use of TP20 under certain conditions

Dear Colleagues

Attached is a notice published in the Federal Register announcing the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services’ acceptance of Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) Interoperability Specifications (IS). IS listed in the Notice require the use of HITSP/TP20 Access Control Transaction Package. As described at the end of the notice, acceptance triggers legal obligations to use the standards cited by HITSP within certain U.S. Federal agencies and between those agencies and non-agencies.

We discussed the WS-SX TC meeting (July 23, 2008), HITSP requires an XSPA profile of WS-Trust to fill an existing gap identified in the cited standards. A future Federal Registry notice is expected to trigger legal obligations to use the XSPA profile of WS-Trust under certain conditions.

The WS-SX TC ultimately declined to accept the XSPA profile of WS-Trust as a work item but suggested that members of the TC would help develop the profile in the XSPA TC. I have not seen any leadership by WS-SX TC members in the XSPA TC on the development of the WS-Trust profile. Volunteers are requested to join our weekly Monday technical meetings and our bi-weekly Friday XSPA TC meetings. Contact me directly if you are interested in our effort and I will walk through the project in a personal call with you. The XSPA TC will be releasing both a U.S. realm and an international XSPA profile of WS-Trust.

In addition to the development of the XSPA profile of WS-Trust, we need volunteers to demonstrate the profile at HIMSS Showcase in early April. Vendors having the ability to demonstrate WS-Trust are required to make the demonstration possible. This is a key activity by HITSP, OASIS, and HIMSS to demonstrate to healthcare vendors and health providers OASIS standards that meet the security and privacy needs of the industry. There is still time to participate as we still have room in the featured “future directions” booth in the interoperability showcase for more participants.

Please join us in the development and demonstration of the XSPA profile of WS-Trust. Since we are in the “future directions” area at HIMSS, your participation will be technical, not subject to IHE profile conformance requirements, and provide high visibility to the WS-Trust standard and to your company. The DoD Medical Health Services will be integrated into the demonstration. Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

David Staggs

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