14 January 2013

National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information Demonstration Project

http://www.ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2013-00724_PI.pdf

[FR Doc. 2013-00724 Filed 01/14/2013 at 8:45 am; Publication Date: 01/15/2013]

Billing Code: 3510-13 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 
[Docket No.: 120823388-2388-01] 

National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Secure Exchange of Electronic 
Health Information Demonstration Project. 

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Commerce 

ACTION: Notice 

SUMMARY: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) invites 
organizations to provide products and technical expertise to support and demonstrate 
security platforms for exchange of electronic health care information by healthcare 
providers. This notice is the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center of 
Excellence (NCCoE) in the Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information project. 
Participation in the project is open to all interested organizations. 

DATES: Interested parties must contact NIST to request a certification letter. 
Completed and signed certification letters must be received by NIST by 5:00 PM Eastern 
time on [PLEASE INSERT DATE 45 DAYS AFTER PUBLICATION IN THE 
FEDERAL REGISTER.]. 

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9600 Gudelsky Drive Rockville, MD 20850. 
Certification letters must be submitted to Karen Waltermire via email at 
NCCoE@nist.gov; or via hardcopy to NCCoE, National Institute of Standards and 
Technology; 100 Bureau Drive; MS 2000 Gaithersburg, MD 20899. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Karen Waltermire via email at 
NCCoE@nist.gov; or telephone 301-975-4500; NCCoE, National Institute of Standards 
and Technology; 100 Bureau Drive; MS 2000; Gaithersburg, MD 20899. Additional 
details about the Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information project will be 
available at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/hit. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background: The NCCoE, hosted by NIST, is a public-private collaboration for 
accelerating the widespread adoption of integrated cybersecurity tools and technologies. 
The NCCoE will bring together experts from industry, government, and academia under 
one roof to develop practical, interoperable cybersecurity approaches that address the real 
world needs of complex Information Technology (IT) systems. By accelerating 
dissemination and use of these integrated tools and technologies for protecting IT assets, 
the NCCoE will enhance trust in U.S. IT communications, data, and storage systems; 
lower risk for companies and individuals in the use of IT systems; and encourage 
development of innovative, job-creating cybersecurity products and services. The project 
is not restricted to organizations required to comply with the standards and 
implementation specifications promulgated under the Health Insurance Portability and 
Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 or to organizations using EHR technology that 
complies with the standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria 
promulgated under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health 
(HITECH) Act of 2009. NIST expects that participation in the project will help 
participating organizations gain knowledge that will help them comply with these 
requirements. 

Process: NIST is soliciting responses from all sources of relevant security capabilities 
(e.g., vendors, academia, and integrators). Interested parties should contact NIST using 
the information provided in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this notice. 
Each interested party will be provided with a certification letter, which the party must 
complete and submit to NIST by the date provided in the DATES section of this notice. 
The certification letter must be completed and submitted to NIST by the responding 
organization. NIST will contact interested parties if there are questions regarding 
the responsiveness of the certification letters to the project objective or project 
requirements identified below. NIST will select participants who have submitted 
complete certification letters on a first come, first served basis within each category of 
product components or capabilities listed below up to the number of participants in each 
category necessary to carry out this project. Selected participants will be required to 
enter into a consortium Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) 
with NIST. NIST published a notice in the Federal Register on October 19, 2012 (77 FR 
64314) inviting U.S. companies to enter into “National Cybersecurity Excellence 
Partnerships” (NCEPs) in furtherance of the NCCoE. For this demonstration project 
NCEP partners will not be given priority for participation. 

Project Objective: Healthcare providers increasingly need to securely exchange 
electronic health information with each other. The confidentiality, integrity, and 
availability of this information must be protected. Secure exchange of electronic health 
information is often particularly challenging for small healthcare providers, who may 
lack the security infrastructure or expertise that larger healthcare providers possess. 
Other challenges with secure electronic health information exchange include the variety 
of client devices (desktops, laptops, and mobile devices) and the range of healthcare data 
exchange standards. 

Major security concerns for secure electronic health information exchange include, but 
are not limited to, the following categories: 

• Lack of physical security controls (e.g., increased risk of loss or theft for mobile 
devices, public proximity to client devices) 

• Use of untrusted client devices (lack of security features or circumvention of 
those features) 

• Use of untrusted networks (e.g., broadband, WiFi, WiMAX, cellular networks) 

• Interaction with other systems in terms of data synchronization and storage 

Although a number of components are available to address some of these concerns in 
some healthcare environments, security platforms that are composed of available 
capabilities in a secure, usable, and affordable manner to provide comprehensive 
solutions are needed for the very large number of small healthcare providers. The goal 
for this project is to provide a security platform to enable small healthcare providers to 
exchange electronic health information in support of the U.S. federal government and the 
health IT community. 

Requirements: Each organization must complete and execute the certification letter and 
certify that it is accurate and complete. 

Each organization will be asked to identify which security platform components or 
capabilities it is offering. Product components or capabilities include one or more of the 
following: 

1. Electronic health information entry and display devices, 
2. Authentication and authorization mechanisms, 
3. Data transfer/communications components, 
4. Electronic health information storage and retrieval components, 
5. Forms generation capabilities, and 
6. Printer devices or interfaces. 

Specific requirements of the Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information 
demonstration project are as follows: 

1. Compatibility with various electronic health record (EHR) systems in use by 
small healthcare providers; 

2. Use of, or compatibility with, healthcare data exchange standards and 
implementation specifications (e.g., HL7, DICOM, IHE), including the transport 
standards adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services at 45 CFR 
170.202; 

3. Access by project staff to component interfaces and the organization’s experts 
necessary to make functional connections among security platform components; 

4. Enterprise security policy enforcement on the client devices through a hardware 
root of trust, such as implementing secure configuration baselines for operating 
systems and applications; automatically continuously monitoring, detecting, and 
reporting policy violations; and performing system health checks; 

5. Support for standardized security automation technologies (e.g., SCAP); 

6. Strong encryption of data communications and local storage; 

7. User authentication, including support of directory services, multi-factor 
authentication, and key management; 

8. Use of secure infrastructure components (e.g., DNSSEC, IPv4, and IPv6); 

9. Development and demonstration of use cases in NCCoE facilities; and 
10. Development and demonstration activities will be conducted in a manner 
consistent with Federal requirements (e.g., FIPS 200, FIPS 201, SP 800-53, and 
SP 800-63. 

Additional details about the Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information Use Case 
project will be available for organizations to look at specifics that are relevant to 
capability and component identification, at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/hit. 

NIST cannot guarantee that all of the products proposed by respondents will be used in 
the demonstration. Each prospective participant will be expected to work collaboratively 
with NIST staff and other project participants under the terms of the consortium CRADA 
in the development of the Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information capability. 
Prospective participants’ contribution to the collaborative effort will include assistance in 
establishing the necessary interface functionality, connection and set-up capabilities and 
procedures, demonstration harnesses, environmental and safety conditions for use, 
integrated platform user instructions, and demonstration plans and scripts necessary to 
demonstrate the desired capabilities. Each prospective participant will train NIST 
personnel as necessary, to operate its product in capability demonstrations to the 
healthcare community. Following successful demonstrations, NIST will publish a 
description of the security platform and its performance characteristics sufficient to 
permit other organizations to develop and deploy security platforms that meet the security 
objectives of the Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information Demonstration 
project. These descriptions will be public information. 

Under the terms of the consortium CRADA, NIST will support development of interfaces 
among participants’ products, including IT infrastructure, laboratory facilities, office 
facilities, collaboration facilities, and staff support to component composition, security 
platform documentation, and demonstration activities. 

The dates of the demonstration of the Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information 
capability to the healthcare community will be announced on the NCCoE website at least 
two weeks in advance at: http://csrc.nist.gov/nccoe. The expected outcome of the 
demonstration is to enable healthcare providers to exchange electronic health 
information. Participating organizations will gain from the knowledge that their products 
are interoperable with other participants’ offerings. 

For additional information on the NCCoE governance, business processes, and NCCoE 
operational structure, visit the NCCoE website http://csrc.nist.gov/nccoe. 

Dated: January 10, 2013 

Willie E. May 
Associate Director for Laboratory Programs