ONC Workgroup Walks Tightrope Of Standards Principles

Health IT stakeholders are digging in for the task of aligning standards clinical quality measurement and clinical decision support, but they’re still laying the groundwork.

Health IT stakeholders are digging in for the task of aligning standards clinical quality measurement and clinical decision support, but they’re still laying the groundwork.

Broadly, the ONC’s Health IT Standards Committee charged the Clinical Quality Workgroup with “commenting on the appropriateness of certain standards and the alignment of standards” for Meaningful Use clinical quality measurement and clinical decision support, said workgroup co-chair Daniel Rosenthal, MD, director of healthcare intelligence at Inova Health System in Virginia.

Perhaps that’s too broad, Rosenthal said at a meeting of the clinical quality workgroup; indeed, he’s working to get “as explicit as possible clarity from chairs of HIT Standards Committee on questions they need answered.”

But the overarching goal remains to help streamline standards, and before the workgroup can align standards for clinical quality measurement and clinical decision support, they’re crafting a framework of principles.