As the government works to draft a "meaningful use" definition by the end of December, healthcare IT vendors are urging clarity and consistency on what they and providers are expected to implement to receive incentives under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Mark Segal, vice chairman of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's Electronic Health Record Association and director of government and industry relations for GE Healthcare IT, emphasized the importance of a single standard for exchange of clinical summaries.

"The use of the powerful and flexible CCD standard, which has been accepted by major standards organizations and federal agencies, is central to data liquidity, vendor neutrality and interoperability," he said.

The EHR Association testified at an Oct. 29 public hearing hosted by the HIT Standards Committee implementation workgroup, charged with advising the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT on "real-world" healthcare IT implementation experience, with special emphasis on strategies to accelerate the adoption of proposed standards and overcoming barriers.

"We feel it is essential for the EHR software provider community to be represented in these important deliberations," said Justin Barnes, president of the EHR Association. "Our commitment to interoperability is backed by thousands of hours and millions of dollars spent developing software, implementing and supporting standards."

The association has contributed to ONC's work on standards since 2004, according to Barnes. "We published the first version of our interoperability roadmap in 2005 based on the assumption of incremental implementation of a single standard for the exchange of clinical documents," he said. "We continue to believe that this roadmap-based approach is the right way forward for the industry."

The EHR Association represents 45 member companies who are the major suppliers of electronic health record systems in the United States.