ONC names privacy, security workgroup members

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT named 17 people to the newly formed privacy and security workgroup of the Health IT Policy Committee, panels that are advising ONC on shaping its health IT agenda.

The work group will be co-chaired by Deven McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Rachel Block, executive director of the New York eHealth Collaborative and deputy commissioner for health IT transformation at the New York State Department of Health.

Their team will advise the Policy Committee on such matters as how safeguards for the exchange of health information should fit into the “meaningful use” test for health IT incentives that ONC has been working on. 

The new Policy Committee workgroup has a counterpart that has been working with ONC’s Standards Committee. The Standards Committee’s privacy and security workgroup has identified standards for access control, authentication and audits that will be incorporated into certified electronic health records.

In addition to the privacy and security panel, the policy committee has also recently created a workgroup devoted to the nationwide health information network, which will weigh approaches to secure health information sharing via the Internet.

Some of the privacy and security work group members named today already sit on its parent Policy Committee. They are: are Dixie Baker, SAIC; Paul Egerman, consultant; Judy Faulkner, Epic Inc.; Gayle Harrell, a consumer representative with the state of Florida; Dr. Mike Klag, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health; Latanya Sweeney, Carnegie Mellon University; and Paul Tang, Palo Alto Medical Foundation and Policy Committee vice chairman.

New members who are not current members of the Policy Committee are: Dr. Peter Basch; a healthcare practitioner, Dr. A. John Blair, a practitioner; Marianna Bledsoe, the National Institutes for Health; Joyce DuBow, AARP; Justine Handelman, Blue Cross Blue Shield; John Houston, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; Terri Shaw, Children’s Partnership; and Paul Uhrig, SureScripts. Jodi Daniel and Sarah Wattenberg will represent the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT on the workgroup. More information about the Health IT Policy Committee can be found here.