The Health Care Practice Taskforce is charged by the State Alliance with identifying and addressing issues pertaining to the regulatory, legal and professional standards that have an impact on the practice of medicine and create barriers to interoperable, electronic health information exchange.
- Recommendation 1.1: The State Alliance should recommend that state medical, nursing and pharmacy boards work to implement online licensure applications.
- Recommendation 1.2: The State Alliance should recommend that all state nursing and pharmacy boards develop common core licensure application forms, and state medical boards adopt the Federation of State Medical Board Common Licensure Application Form. Individual states may include state specific requirements.
The Health Information Protection Taskforce is charged by the State Alliance with identifying and addressing issues pertaining to the privacy and security of consumer health information while allowing for seamless electronic health information exchange within and across states.
- Recommendation 1.0: The State Alliance should encourage states to recognize the certification of newly acquired electronic health record applications and network components by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) or other certification body designated by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
- Recommendation 1.1: The State Alliance should encourage the President to call on the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to designate a single, national certification body (such as CCHIT) for use by all relevant federal agencies and require product and network certification for participants in all federally funded programs, grants and contracts for newly acquired products or network components.
- Recommendation 1.2: The State Alliance should encourage states to become engaged and provide input into the certification process by supporting the participation of State Chief Information Officers (CIOs), public program CIOs and state health information technology coordinators (or equivalent-level personnel) in the CCHIT, Health Information Technology Standards Panel or similar federally endorsed activities in order to ensure that the state perspective is incorporated and to ensure applicability of the requirements in the state environment.
- Recommendation 2.0: The State Alliance should encourage states to continue to (1) educate leaders of the executive and legislative branches on the importance of interstate alignment of privacy protections and (2) sustain efforts through financial and political support or other means, to reduce the variability of state privacy requirements within and across states, in a manner that ensures appropriate consumer protections are in place.
- Recommendation 2.1: The State Alliance should call on the Executive Branch of the federal government to work with the Alliance to identify challenges in current federal statutory and regulatory requirements and create mutually acceptable solutions that would allow for alignment of these requirements as they relate to the privacy and security of health information and health information exchange, in a manner that ensures appropriate consumer protections are in place.
