Federal Register Notice

Dear XSPA Colleagues

1. Federal Register Notice

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.

2. Why this is Significant

The Notice specifies several OASIS standards but does not include profiles that provide the specificity required of a standards-based interoperable cross-enterprise authorization exchange. Our work at HIMSS will concentrate the expertise required to formalize these necessary profiles. HITSP continues to follow our progress closely and is expected to update TP20 with the XSPA profiles once they become OASIS standards. A future Federal Registry notice is expected to trigger legal obligations to use the XSPA profiles under the conditions cited in the Notice.

3. Impact on Healthcare

The President’s agenda includes lowering healthcare costs by “[investing] $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information systems, including electronic health records.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/health_care) Our work will provide standards-based security and privacy access control solutions that will help make that that investment successful.

Regards,

David

David Staggs, JD, CISSP (SAIC)
Veterans Health Administration
Chief Health Informatics Office
Emerging Health Technologies
Office: 858 433 1473

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