MEDITECH Continues to Take Leadership Role in the Development of Standards

MEDITECH's leaders are continually taking on greater roles in the national effort to achieve truly interoperable health records. As part of this undertaking, President and COO Howard Messing, Vice President Hoda Sayed-Friel, and Physicians Advisory Board Chairman Russ Ricci, MD, are now participating as advisors to Connecting for Health—a multi-stakeholder organization comprised of businesses, I.T. vendors, and consumer groups, aimed at proactively developing standards for the sharing of health information.

MEDITECH has been particularly active in the development of standards for sharing allergy information. Sayed-Friel notes that MEDITECH was instrumental in convincing the three largest formulary service vendors to agree to work together to create a standard allergy nomenclature.  This will enhance communication when data is shared across disparate systems.

"Progress has finally been made to engage a standards organization to be responsible for the maintenance and propagation of allergy-standard nomenclature," she says, adding that all parties will soon meet to begin this project and to determine how best to proceed.