S.63 would remove board approval of state health IT plan, add board voting role on HIE steering committee

S.63 would remove the Green Mountain Care Board's statutory responsibility to review and approve the statewide health information technology (HIT) plan and VITL's budget, while making the board a voting member of the state's health information exchange (HIE) steering committee.

Jen Kirby, legislative counsel, summarized the bill at the committee hearing: the draft would "eliminate the Green Mountain Care Board's duty to review and approve the statewide health information technology plan." Kirby explained the text strikes the board's approval role and instead makes the board a recipient of the plan updates. The proposed change also updates an agency name reference: the Department of Information and Innovation became the Agency of Digital Services/Secretary of Digital Services.

Board staff told lawmakers the changes are largely housekeeping and were proposed by the board to free staff capacity for other regulatory work. Diane Lanfer said the board has historically participated collaboratively in the development of the HIT plan and that removing the formal approval duty while adding a voting HIE steering-committee seat would convert the board's role from approver to active participant.

Committee members asked about the steering committee's composition and voting membership. Jen Kirby said membership is not created by statute and that the steering committee's membership is listed on its website; testimony noted the steering committee has 13 voting members and that adding the board as a voting member would create an even number of voting members.

The bill would also change public-record handling of ACO filings and require information filed by an ACO under the new scheme to be made available in accordance with the Public Records Act, with protections for individually identifiable data. No vote was taken; the committee asked staff to provide conforming edits and to check cross-references to related bills.