President Bush, Frist name health IT group members

A new commission to set a strategy and timeline for implementing health care IT standards is taking shape.

On Friday, President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) named the initial members of the Commission on Systemic Interoperability group. The group, by November of next year, must recommend standards that will serve as the foundation for establishing a system of universal health records.

The commission will ultimately have 11 members.

The White House said President Bush intends to appoint:

* Scott Wallace, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Health Information Technology, as chairman

* Dr. C. Martin Harris, CIO of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and chairman of the National Health Information Infrastructure Task Force of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society

* Dr. William Stead, associate vice chancellor for health affairs and director of the informatics center at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Frist named:

* Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications Inc. of New York

* Vicky Gregg, CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

The Speaker of the House, Senate Minority Leader and House Minority Leader will name the remaining members of the commission.