Mary Mosquera

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology has named Karen Bell, MD, a former executive in the Office of the National Coordinator and an expert in improving health quality, as its chair, effective April 26.

The Veterans Affairs and Defense departments intend to test more complex health data sets and include more participants in its second "VLER Community" project, the latest in a planned series of live tests of a Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record for military community members and their families.

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) said it believes the Interim Final Rule (IFR) on standards and certification might cause "unintended deceleration in the pace of adoption."

The White House on Friday called for the creation of a government-wide task force to strengthen coordination of healthcare IT among federal agencies that hold key roles in carrying out the administration's plans for a digital healthcare system.

National Health IT Coordinator David Blumenthal, MD, emphasized Thursday that quality measures are at the heart of his office's strategy for using IT to transform the U.S. healthcare system.

Health IT advocates on Capitol Hill Tuesday pledged to keep pushing for IT measures in healthcare reform and other pending legislation, despite the commitment already included in the economic stimulus package.

The Health IT Standards Committee Tuesday endorsed a set of security and privacy standards for electronic health record systems that it said would get progressively tougher without holding back wider health information sharing.