North Carolina

Team Description

The North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, Inc. (NCHICA) is a nonprofit consortium of over 220 organizations established by Executive Order of the Governor of North Carolina in 1994 to improve healthcare in North Carolina by accelerating the adoption of information technology. NCHICA leads demonstration projects, hosts educational sessions, fosters collaborative efforts and supports initiatives that promote standards-based IT in healthcare statewide.

The Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration (HISPC) Project will provide the crucial policy foundation upon which the national framework for interoperable health information exchange (HIE) will be constructed.

We invite all healthcare stakeholders in North Carolina to join us in this important project. Participation in the North Carolina Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration (NC-HISPC) will enable stakeholders to identify variances between privacy and security business policies and practices throughout the state; document current "best practices" and incorporate them into their operations; and propose alternatives to those business policies and practices that inhibit the secure electronic exchange of health information within North Carolina and, when appropriate, with entities in other states. Finally, the HISPC process will help our state to achieve the critical mass of inter-institutional and inter-personal connections needed to pursue those proposed changes in policy, law and practice that arise from the project.

Below is a list of the Project Milestones and Deliverables:

How to get involved

NCHICA invites your organization to join this unprecedented project by registering to work on one of the various committees that are necessary to ensure that all stakeholders are represented and that the project meets its goals.  These groups and committees include:

• Stakeholder Groups - these are groups of stakeholders defined by their relationship to health information, (payers, consumers, physicians, hospitals, long-term care facilities, dentists, mental health care providers, etc.). The stakeholder groups together comprise the stakeholder community.
• State Variations Working Group (VWG) - The VWG will be tasked with assessing variations in organization-level business policies and practices and categorizing them as barriers, best practices, or neutral with respect to interoperability. The VWG will work closely with the state Legal Working Group to identify any legal drivers behind the policies and to produce the interim assessment of variation report (Deliverable No. 2).
• State Legal Working Group (LWG) - The LWG will assess applicable privacy and security policies underlying regulations, court cases, etc. and identify legal sources of barriers to interoperable EHR s. The LWG will be tasked with reviewing the barriers uncovered in the business policy assessment (see VWG) and mapping those barriers to applicable state privacy and security laws. The LWG will also develop a set of recommended policies that are consistent with the laws of their state. Members of the LWG will also work with the Solutions Working Group and the Implementation Planning Working Group to ensure that laws are accurately and consistently interpreted throughout the process of formulating solutions and planning implementation of those solutions.=
• State Solutions Working Group (SWG) - The S WG will be tasked with reviewing the assessment of variation of state laws and business policies identified as barriers by the VWG and formulating preliminary solutions to the barriers. The SWG will draft the preliminary deliverable report of the analysis of solutions report (Deliverable No. 3).
• State Implementation Plan  Working Group (IPWG) - The IPWG will review the interim analysis of solutions (Deliverable No. 3) and propose preliminary implementation plans, which they will document in the interim implementation plan report (Deliverable No. 4).
• Ad hoc Working Groups (AWG) - The AWGs are subgroups of specific stakeholder groups or multi-stakeholder groups that will be formed to conduct the work needed to support the VWG, SWG, LWG, and IPWG.

Angie M. Santiago
NC HISPC Project Manager
asantiago@nchica.org
919-558-9258 ext. 26

Milestones

NC HISPC Project Schedule