WASHINGTON – Editor’s note: This story was edited Jan. 27 to clarify that HITSP  will continue to operate through April 30th under a contract extension that will enable it to maintain a presence until a new RFP for standards harmonization is issued.

HITSP, an organization that did much to sort through and harmonize health IT standards over the last five years and whose work provided an early foundation for “meaningful use,” will begin winding down its operations after this week.

On Jan. 31, the contract under which the Health IT Standards Panel operated since it’s inception in 2005, will expire. However, the group will continue to provide basic services through April 30th under a no-cost contract extension from the Office of the National Coordinator.

The gap contract will enable the organization to maintain its Web site, communicate with members and support other pending business until ONC issues a request for proposals for the future health standards harmonization work it will need.

HITSP was set up in 2005 as a partnership among public and private sector organizations to help pursue President Bush’s vision of establishing a nationwide system of electronic health record sharing by 2014.

The panel’s mission was to mesh standards associated with “use cases” –key scenarios of health IT in action – such as in the public health or emergency medicine arenas where complicated information hand-offs are required.

HITSP’s standards work has now been incorporated into the Interim Final Rule (IFR), the Office of the National Coordinator’s plan for how standards and certification of e-health records will support the “meaningful use” of health IT.

Dr. John Halamka, the chairman of HITSP since its inception, said he believed the panel’s work created understanding and reduced barriers among public and private groups.“Having a roadmap, a common set of goals, a common set of processes, and a common place to dialog has been extraordinarily valuable,” he said in an online presentation Jan. 22.

He added that the standards harmonization accomplished by the group helped lay a foundation for ONC’s current meaningful use plan. “I believe that without standards harmonization, we would never have gotten to the Interim Final Rule,” said Halamka, who is also CIO of the Harvard Medical School.

The IFR included harmonized standards for transport of data; vocabulary for clinical problems and medication; and clinical information, such as patient summaries and prescriptions.

In the near future, Halamka said, he hopes, “we end up with a crisp set of implementation guides published on the ONC Web site … so that every one of our implementers can rapidly create the interoperability needed to support meaningful use.”

ONC will soon seek proposals from groups to continue the health IT standards harmonization work started by HITSP. The successor organization might be an entirely different organization or a version of the existing HITSP group, according to Halamka.