22.5 Million Dollars For US Nationwide Health Information Network

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Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
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Article Date: 08 Oct 2007 - 4:00 PDT

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In a step to fulfill President Bush's mandate to have a lifelong electronic health record for nearly every American by 2014, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded contracts worth 22.5 million dollars to 9 Health Information Exchanges to establish trials of a national network of electronic health information.

The move is part of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) plan announced by the HHS last year. According to the HHS website Health IT, the overall government strategy for Health IT is to:

"Help consumers gather all of their health information in one place so they can thoroughly understand it and share it securely with their health care providers so they get the care that best fits their individual needs."

The awards will enable the consortium to set up trial networks to test the secure flow of and access to electronic health information across the country, said HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt last Friday:

"These trial implementations are taking place in communities across America that are leading the way to health care transformation using secure, interoperable health information technology."

The technical problems are not inconsiderable as different regions have systems that operate in different ways and store and transport data in different formats following different IT standards. The Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) will in effect be "networks of networks". They will control the flow of data from one network to the other and back again to produce a seamless effect that does not lose the quality of information and keeps it secure.

Trialling the HIEs "will bring us steps closer to a health IT system that will improve quality of care, increase efficiencies in health care, and improve disease prevention," said Leavitt.

The first stage of the NHIN implementation will allow health care providers to share basic health information. More complex facilities will come later, said the HHS announcement.

The consortium of HIE contractors will be called the NHIN Cooperative and comprises:

• CareSpark: Tricities region of Eastern Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia.
• Delaware Health Information Network
• Indianapolis metroplex: Indiana University.
• Long Beach Network for Health: Long Beach and Los Angeles, California.
• Lovelace Clinic Foundation: New Mexico.
• MedVirginia: Central Virginia.
• New York eHealth Collaborative: New York.
• North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, Inc.
• West Virginia Health Information Network.

Their collective goal is to "test and demonstrate the exchange of private and secure health information among providers, patients and other health care stakeholders".

Dr Robert Kolodner, national coordinator for health information technology said:

"The NHIN trial implementations are another important step toward improving health and care of individuals and communities and to continue to modernize health care delivery."

Further contracts are expected to be announced later this year in December. These will be awarded by the HHS' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and will fund trials to test the ability of th NHIN to carry public health agency information.

Results of the various trials are expected to be made public at the end of the first contract year, which will be in September 2008.

The HIEs will build on the work already accomplished by the HHS, its various contractors and partners, including: the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT), the Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration (HISPC) and the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS).

To stimulate widespread participation in the development of the NHIN, details of the HIE specification and testing will be placed in the public domain.

Click here for further information (HHS Health Information Technology site).

Written by: Catharine Paddock
Copyright: Medical News Today
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