national healthcare information network personal health diminsion

For more information, contact:
Theresa Grant
American Health Information Management Association
(312) 233-1100
theresa.grant@ahima.org

LEADING HEALTH CARE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY GROUPS ENDORSE COMMON
FRAMEWORK FOR HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGE TO SUPPORT IMPROVEMENTS IN
HEALTH AND HEALTHCARE
Thirteen Groups Collaborate in Responding to Federal Government’s RFI
on National Health Information Network

January 18, 2005 (New York, NY and Washington, DC) Thirteen major
health and information technology organizations, in an unprecedented
joint collaboration, today endorsed a “Common Framework” to support
improved health information exchange in the United States while
protecting patient privacy. The collaborating organizations have
identified the vital design elements – of standards, policies, and
methods—for creating a new information environment that would allow
health care professionals, institutions, and individual Americans to
exchange health information in order to improve patient care. These
recommendations were developed in response to the Request for
Information related to a “National Health Information Network” issued
by the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information
Technology (ONCHIT) within the Department of Health and Human Services
in November 2004.

The collaborative foresees a new health information environment that
would allow appropriate users to find, request and retrieve patient
records rapidly and accurately, subject to patient authorization. This
decentralized approach takes advantage of the significant investment
already made in information technology in U.S. health care, protects
the privacy of patient information, and allows rapid progress toward
providing Americans with more reliable, higher quality care. The
recommended approach does not require centralized national databases,
replacement of existing information networks, or a unique national
health identifier.

The new health information environment should be based on:

Open, consensus-driven and non-proprietary standards and common
 methods for their adoption

Connectivity built on the Internet and other existing networks

Uniform policies that protect privacy, assure security, and
 support existing trust relationships.

The collaborative also recommends the use of financial incentives for
the adoption of standards-based information technology in health care,
citing opportunities to leverage this environment to produce value for
patients, consumers, professionals, researchers, the public health
community and, indeed, all sectors of our health care system. Finally,
the recommendations describe the roles and structure of both the
national and regional elements of this environment.

The collaborators noted that the new information environment must:

Facilitate effective connectivity for the delivery of high quality
 healthcare

Provide timely access to information

Empower patients to access and control their own information and
 contribute to the quality of care provided

Support the application of “intelligent” tools to improve health
 and health care

Facilitate the appropriate aggregation of data for public health,
 research, and quality assessment, and

Enable improvements in the quality of clinical care.

The group, coordinated by Connecting for Health, represents America’s
clinical leadership, academic institutions, health insurance plans,
private industry, consumer and patient leaders, technology vendors,
employers, and some of the foremost experts on health information
management and information technology and includes:

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA):
 the national association of health information management
 professionals. AHIMA' s 50,000 members are dedicated to the
 effective management of personal health information needed to
 deliver quality healthcare to the public.

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA): AMIA is
 dedicated to the development and application of medical
 informatics in support of patient care, teaching, research, and
 health care administration.

The American National Standards Institute, Healthcare Informatics
 Standards Board (ANSI HISB): ANSI HISB provides an open, public
 forum for the voluntary coordination of healthcare informatics
 standards among all United States standard-developing
 organizations, professional societies, trade associations, private
 companies, federal agencies and others with more than 100
 participants.

The Center for Information Technology Leadership (CITL): CITL is a
 non-profit research group based at Partners HealthCare in Boston
 and supported by HIMSS that assesses the value of clinical
 information technologies to help provider organizations maximize
 the value of their IT investments, to help technology firms
 understand how to improve the value proposition of their
 healthcare products, and to inform national healthcare IT policy
 discussions.

The Connecting for Health Steering Group (CFH): Connecting for
 Health…A Public Private Collaborative was conceived and is
 operated by the Markle Foundation and receives additional support
 from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Steering Group
 includes more than 60 diverse stakeholders from the public and
 private sector, committed to accelerating actions on a national
 basis to tackle the technical, financial and policy challenges of
 bringing healthcare into the information age.

The eHealth Initiative (eHI): eHI is an independent, non-profit
 consortium of practicing clinicians, employers and healthcare
 purchasers, health plans, healthcare information technology
 vendors, hospitals and other healthcare providers, manufacturers,
 patient and consumer organizations, and public health agencies,
 whose mission is to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of
 healthcare through information and information technology.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS):
 HIMSS is the healthcare industry's membership organization
 exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of
 healthcare information technology and management systems for the
 betterment of human health.

Health Level Seven, Inc. (HL7): HL7’s comprehensive suite of ANSI
 accredited standards for the exchange of demographic and clinical
 information provides the syntax and semantics for interoperability
 in a large number of provider organizations in the United States
 and around the world.

HIMSS EHR Vendor Association (EHRVA): EHRVA represents more than
 25 Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors with a mission to
 address national efforts relative to health information
 interoperability, standards, EHR certification, performance and
 quality measures, and other evolving government, industry and
 physician association initiatives and requests.

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), (American College of
 Cardiology, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society,
 and Radiological Society of North America): IHE drives standards
 adoption to address specific clinical needs, by creating a
 framework for passing vital health information seamlessly – from
 application to application, system to system and setting to
 setting – across the entire healthcare enterprise.

Internet2: Internet2 is a consortium led by over 200 universities
 working in partnership with industry and government to develop and
 deploy advanced network applications and technologies,
 accelerating the creation of tomorrow’s Internet for a broad
 spectrum of organizations, including those in the health sciences.

The Liberty Alliance Project: Liberty Alliance is a consortium of
 more than 150 organizations from across the globe, committed to
 developing open standards for federated network identity that
 support all current and emerging network devices.

The National Alliance for Health Information Technology: The
 Alliance is a diverse partnership of influential leaders from all
 healthcare sectors working to achieve measurable improvements in
 patient safety, quality and efficiency through information
 technology.

Comments from Collaborating Organization Participants:

From AHIMA:
"This request for information from ONCHIT provides an outstanding
opportunity to gather and organize the industry's collective
intelligence and begin mapping out a course of action. Creating a
national health information network is a complex yet critical
challenge but one that we must not wait any longer to address. The
health of patients and the systems that serve them are depending on
it." -Linda Kloss, RHIA, CAE, executive vice president and CEO

From AMIA:
“Implementing information technology for the nation is an
extraordinary challenge that must be addressed if we are to
successfully solve the many problematic dimensions facing health care
in America today. Through this recent collaborative effort, including
the expert resources of AMIA, we have been able to suggest tested
advice for David Brailer and his staff.” -Don E. Detmer, AMIA
President and CEO

From ANSI/HISB:
“The collaboration among these industry groups demonstrates an
unprecedented commitment to making the NHII a reality. It is my
sincere hope that this will be the first of many collaborative efforts
required for successful implementation of the NHII." -Robert L. Owens,
Chair; Health Informatics Standards Board

From CITL:
“The Collaborative Response to the ONCHIT RFI describes the critical
technology requirements, and guiding principles --a Common Framework
--to create a 21st century National Health Information Network.
Without consideration of such a Common Framework for the NHIN we are
at risk of implementing IT solutions in healthcare that can obtain
only half their potential value. Without information exchange and
interoperability between systems, we may implement islands of
automation across clinics and hospitals that cannot communicate with
each other, and thus cannot fully support the transformation of US
healthcare.” -Blackford Middleton, MD, MPH, MSc; Chairman of CITL
Executive Committee

From Connecting for Health:
”The principles developed by the collaborative will put patients and
their families at the very center of the health care system, supported
and surrounded by an information environment that they can use – or
allow others to use – to make decisions, monitor health, provide
feedback, and support strategic analytic functions that produce
measurable improvements in health.” -Carol Diamond, MD, Managing
Director, Markle Foundation

From eHealth Initiative:
“In working on this response, we found that we hold far more in common
than we ever imagined. This represents the first-ever set of detailed
recommendations regarding the specific attributes and principles of an
environment for health information sharing developed by such a large
and diverse group of stakeholders. Our collaborative response should
lay the foundation for the actual execution of a 21st century
healthcare system that will help us reduce medical errors, improve
quality, and begin to tackle issues related to rising healthcare
costs.” -Janet Marchibroda, Chief Executive of eHealth Initiative and
Executive Director of the eHealth Initiative Foundation

From HL7:
“HL7 is pleased to be included in the diverse group of healthcare
industry and policy leaders contributing to a consensus response to
this important RFI. We firmly believe that the goal of a National
Health Information Network will be facilitated by this unprecedented
collaborative effort. We look forward to continued work with the
collaborative in support of this important national initiative. Our
focus will be on ensuring that the Common Framework incorporates the
tenets of semantic interoperability as implemented in our Version 3
standards; including the inherent need to bind standard vocabularies
to information exchange models defined by use cases.” -Mark J.
Shafarman, Chair, HL7 Board of Directors

From HIMSS, HIMSS EHRVA, and IHE:
"Each of the 13 organizations brings a unique perspective and targeted
expertise related to the development of an interoperable health
information environment. This collaborative response further
strengthens and substantiates the industry'commons effort -and ability
-to work together for the nationwide adoption of a 'framework'for the
electronic exchange of health information." – H. Stephen Lieber,
President/CEO of HIMSS

From Internet2:
"Ubiquitous and secure access to medical information and resources
will lead to more timely, more accurate, and more cost-effective
healthcare. By applying advanced information technology capabilities
to the current healthcare architecture, we believe the entire industry
-from patients to doctors to administrators -will greatly benefit."
-Gary Bachula, vice president of external relations for Internet2

From Liberty Alliance:
“As the only open standards body focused exclusively on the
transaction of identity information, Liberty Alliance is pleased to
have played a role in this significant collaborative submission. We
firmly believe the adoption of federated identity is key to a viable
national health network that protects the privacy and security of all
members. A National Health Information Network would expand the reach
of our healthcare system and help contain escalating healthcare costs.
These are undeniable social benefits, and Liberty's members are proud
to be associated with this effort as experts in federated identity."
-Donal O'Shea, Executive Director of the Liberty Alliance

From The National Alliance for Health Information Technology:
“Dr. Brailer is uniquely qualified to lead the government efforts and
work with the private sector to develop information technology
standards and infrastructure to enhance patient care and operating
efficiencies. We applaud his commitment to seek responses from
technology organizations, healthcare providers, industry associations
and other stakeholders.” -Scott Wallace, president and chief executive
officer of the Alliance

A full copy of the response and brief statements from each supporting
organization can be found on the Connecting for Health Web site at
www.connectingforhealth.org

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