NCJ Number
233611
Date Published
2010
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This paper discusses the use of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) in the development and implementation of provisions under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009, addressing the crisis of information-sharing in the healthcare domain.
Abstract
Today, it is extremely difficult to determine with accuracy the full entitlement of individuals to the range of available healthcare services. The hope for tomorrow, with health information exchange, beneficiaries will have one-stop shopping for the services they need. The road to this mission is with the help of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) which has already proven itself through the collaboration with the National Center for State Courts and the child support enforcement community automating the exchange of data between child support enforcement agencies and courts. NIEM is seen as having the potential to provide value in areas of vital interest to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and help the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technologies (ONC) frame a similar approach. The charge under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 is to get the Nation's healthcare information systems talking to each other. In 2009-2010, attention was turned to NIEM and to existing healthcare information-sharing standards, with focused attention on a single "meaningful use" scenario: the sharing of the patient health summary. Healthcare data was mapped to existing NIEM core elements to create new ones. HHS could use the NIEM process to help construct the needed artifacts, saving time and expense. The ONC plans to use the NIEM, which has been used successfully in government, but adding a healthcare domain to it.