The Data Interchange Standards Association is partnering with two firms to launch an online data certification service for providers, payers and vendors preparing to migrate to the HIPAA 5010 standards for electronic claims and related transactions.

Falls Church, Va.-based DISA provides administrative and technical support to the Accredited Standards Committee X12 of the American National Standards Institute. Units of the committee develop electronic data interchange standards for multiple industries, including health care.

To launch the certification effort, DISA is working with Valatie, N.Y.-based eEmergence, a vendor of software and consulting services for health care EDI projects, and Dublin, Ohio-based Foresight, which sells transactions testing and validation services.

The new certification service, called DISAcert, will bring together the standards definition, interpretation and testing expertise of the organizations. DISAcert will enable stakeholders to upload test files and receive results. The results will include descriptive error messages and interpretative information to show where and why transactions fail. A searchable database will give access to users' questions and answers.

An employer health care coalition in Minnesota is offering state residents a personal health record that’s independent of any provider, payer or employer.

New Jersey lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit the use of health IT products that are not certified by the Certification Commission for Healthcare IT, FierceEMR reports.

WASHINGTON – Health information technology regional extension centers should be designed with local needs in mind and focus on providing implementation and technical assistance to clinicians, according to a new survey released by the eHealth Initiative.

U.S. hospital spending on information technology will hit $4.7 billion this year and grow to $6.8 billion by 2014, according to a new report from HIMSS Analytics, Chicago. Spending will grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.5%, the report says.