Health IT standards project gets manager
The American National Standards Institute appointed LeRoy Jones manage the hodgepodge of health IT standards.
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LeRoy Jones, a Philadelphia consultant who worked for a year in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT), has been named program manager for the project to harmonize the hodgepodge of health IT standards.
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which won the $3.3 million ONCHIT contract for the standards project, appointed Jones to lead the effort.
“Jones is a nationally recognized health care technology expert and a senior strategist on the direction of health information technology policy, investment and usage,” Frances Schrotter, ANSI senior vice president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. “He has the technical skills, business acumen and personal contacts within the health care information technology community to not only support ANSI’s obligations under the ONCHIT-1 contract, but also to significantly advance the harmonization of [health IT] in the United States.”
Jones is principal and chief executive officer of GSI, a five-year-old health IT services company. Besides ONCHIT, GSI has worked for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on architectures and technical infrastructure issues. The company also has many private-sector clients.
Asked about the toughest challenge for the ANSI project, Jones said, “Any time you’re trying to come to consensus between lots of different stakeholders, it’s going to be hard.” He also said harmonizing the ANSI standards process with the federal contract requirements may be challenging.
ANSI has formed the Healthcare IT Standards Panel, chaired by Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer at Harvard Medical School and a leader in health IT. Jones said ANSI expects the panel to continue its work after completing the ONCHIT contract.