(SOLE SOURCE) Program National Council for Prescription Drug Programs Support

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) intends to award a Sole Source support contract to the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) to support advancements in the technical standards necessary to achieve interoperability among health information technology (IT) systems. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) activities support efforts to enhance the health and well-being of Americans by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services. The mission of ONC is to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities through the use of technology and health information that is accessible when and where it matters most.

NCPDP is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited Standards Development Organization (SDO) that uses a consensus-based process to create national standards for the electronic exchange of healthcare information. NCPDP standards are widely used across healthcare and have transformed the pharmacy industry, decreasing health system costs while increasing patient safety and quality of care. Many standards developed by NCPDP have been named in federal legislation. The 2015 Edition Final Rule named NCPDP SCRIPT standard version 10.6 for §170.315(b)(3) electronic prescribing, and that version of the standard is the most widely used standard in the industry to support the exchange of prescription information nationwide. More recently, the ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule[1] requires health IT developers to upgrade their systems and implement the 2017071 version of the NCPDP SCRIPT standard for §170.315(b)(3) electronic prescribing.

In July 2018, ONC worked with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NCPDP through a contract to migrate the ONC health IT §170.315(b)(3) electronic prescribing certification testing tool and associated documentation and support from NIST to NCPDP. Through this effort, NCPDP has adopted and continues to maintain the testing tool that assures health IT’s conformance to §170.315(b)(3) for both NCPDP SCRIPT standard version 10.6 and NCPDP SCRIPT standard version 2017071.

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/05/01/2020-07419/21st-century-cures-act-interoperability-information-blocking-and-the-onc-health-it-certification