WASHINGTON – The Health IT Standards Committee, headed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, kicked off Friday with its first meeting.

Federal officials and panel members said the tasks before it and its twin committee on policy have a steep challenge ahead to meet deadlines established under the new law.

The committees must have an initial set of standards completed by Dec. 31. Recommendations on "meaningful use" - required by providers to be paid bonuses under Medicare - are due within a month or so.

David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology and chairman of the policy committee, said the committees would  be looking to the Bush Administration standards harmonization committee, the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) as a good place to start. HITSP chair John Halamka is now also the co-chair of the new standards committee.

Blumenthal also said the work to be accomplished by the committee has not been "overly prescribed" under ARRA's directives and it will be "a work in progress."

The standards committee is to receive recommendations from the policy committee, which also met this week for the first time. Halamka said the standards committee should proactively anticipate the policy committee's work in order to meet deadlines.

According to Halamka, the four elements likely to be included in meaningful use are electronic prescribing, laboratory reporting, clinical summaries for care coordination and quality data.

Halamka said he believes the standards work under ARRA will be more available to the public than it was under HITSP, and will consider the needs of physicians and how they will be able to apply the standards as part of the initial process.