WASHINGTON – The Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel is developing global standards to support “core research data element exchange.”

HITSP is working to identify a common set of data that can be exchanged from a practice’s implemented electronic health record and other clinical research systems. Thirty-five organizations have offered their financial support in order to help push forward the research.

“These contributions have made it possible for HITSP to begin working toward a sustainable, interoperable infrastructure through which healthcare advances clinical research and in turn informs clinical care,” said Frances Schrotter, American National Standards Institute senior vice president and chief operating officer.

Other federal agencies providing support include the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Cancer Institute, the National Center for Research Resources and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

The HITSP standards initiative was launched last year when the Department of Health and Human Services requested that ANSI create a work group to organize and prioritize a value/use set of standards in this area.

Rebecca Kush, president and CEO of Clinical Data Interchange Standards and Consortium and Gregory Downing, director of the Initiative on Personalized Health Care, head the group.

“Our work will help to streamline and enhance clinical research within the healthcare setting, providing the means to better assess such areas as efficacy, effectiveness and safety for the benefit of patients, investigators, clinicians, technology and service providers, and researchers alike,” said Kush.