The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology will release a proposed rule about interoperability and certification in April, the agency said Thursday.
The proposed rule would update the HITECH Act and meet some provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act, including details about certification for health IT developers, according to ONC's director of policy, Elise Sweeney Anthony, at the first meeting of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee on Thursday.
The rule will also deal with how health information networks attest to using a trusted exchange framework and common agreement for exchanging data among themselves.
Under the draft Trusted Exchange Framework the ONC released in early 2018, providers would be able to request a single patient's information from a given organization, said Genevieve Morris, principal deputy national coordinator. They would also be able to get information about multiple patients at once, something that would catalyze population health analysis.
Members of the ONC also laid out plans for boosting interoperability and achieving some of what the 21st Century Cures Act calls for during Thursday's meeting.
The ONC's presentation came a day after members of HITAC met behind closed doors. The committee of 30 people was rounded out Tuesday, after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) named Aaron Miri and Valerie Grey to the group. Miri is chief information officer for security firm Imprivata, and Grey is executive director of the New York eHealth Collaborative.