NIST’s Activities in Health IT

Patrick D. Gallagher, Ph.D.

Deputy Director

National Institute of Standards and Technology

U.S. Department of Commerce

Gaithersburg, Maryland
The Importance of Health IT

Interoperable health IT will lead to improved care 

at lower cost.

 When fully implemented:

 Seamless movement between health 

care providers without loss of 

information

 Instant access to medical histories at 

the point of care

 Fewer errors and redundant tests

 More efficient and effective reporting, 

surveillance, and quality monitoring

 Quick detection of adverse drug 

reactions and epidemics

Credit: Mercy Hospital

Credit: Bronson Methodist Hospital
NIST’s Mission

To promote U.S. innovation and 

industrial competitiveness by 

advancing measurement 

science, standards, and 

technology ...

... in ways that enhance 

economic security and 

improve our quality of life.

©Geoffrey Wheeler

©Robert Rathe
Why NIST?

 Pedigree

 NIST’s mission is to work with industry to solve these types of 

problems

 History

 NIST has been helping to improve information infrastructure for health 

care since the 1990s

 Expertise

 NIST IT researchers have an 

internationally respected 

reputation for their knowledge,

experience, and leadership

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Why Now?

NIST’s roles are articulated in the 2008 – 2012 Federal Health IT 

Strategic Plan.

NIST has had an interagency agreement with HHS/ONC since 2005. 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stipulates that NIST 

should:

 Advance health care information enterprise integration through 

standards and testing

 Establish grants program for health enterprise integration centers

 Consult on updating the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan

 Consult on voluntary certification programs 

 Consult on health IT implementation

 Provide pilot testing of standards and implementation specifications, 

as requested
NIST’s Activities

NIST enables interoperability and 

adoption by:

 Accelerating standards

development and 

harmonization

 Developing a conformance 

testing infrastructure

 Expanding R&D and 

deployment of security

protocols

 Leveraging testing infrastructure to assist with certification process

Leading to an emerging health IT network that is correct, complete, secure 

and testable.

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Standards Development and Harmonization

NIST provides technical expertise to leverage 

industry-led, consensus-based standards

development and harmonization.

An example is the Cross Document Enterprise 

Sharing (XDS) Profile:

 Allows doctors to securely share health 

information: 

 With the patient’s consent

 Wherever the records are

 Whatever the format

Other technical accomplishments include:

 Developed extensible profile methodology for Electronic Health Records

 Developed standards and guidelines for telemedicine in the areas of 

diabetic retinopathy and teledermatology, in collaboration with the 

American Telemedicine Association

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Conformance Testing

NIST leads the development of an integrated testing infrastructure. 

An example of a test tool NIST developed is the Clinical

Document Validation Tool:

 Tests the correct generation of different types of clinical documents 

 Includes built-in extensibility

Additional technical activities include:

 Leading the development of an integrated virtual testbed for 

standards-based health systems

 Co-chair for the NHIN Collaborative testing strategy and working group

 Evaluation tools served as the basis for industry Connectathon testing 

(February 2009) for over 140 vendors and over 400 systems

 Leads the testing effort within IEEE Medical Device communication 

committee and IHE Patient Care Domain
Security

NIST’s security specifications enable 

communicating parties to ensure the 

confidentiality, integrity, and 

availability of health information.

NIST helps to safeguard health information

by providing a harmonized set of security 

principles and guidelines for use in 

developing secure health information exchanges. 

Technical accomplishments include:

 Lead author of HITSP secure communication construct

 Developed a resource guide for covered entities implementing the 

HIPAA Security Rule

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Moving Forward ...

Future opportunities include:

 Advancing usability and 

accessibility of health 

information technologies

 Expanding the health IT 

infrastructure to other 

environments, such as 

home healthcare

 Applying NIST-wide competencies to meet future clinical needs, 

such as personalized medicine

 Researching standards and testing needs for evolving technologies

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Questions?

Hang in there, we are trying to find your chart.

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©Yuri Arcurs