AMG-SIU Attends 4th Nationwide Health Information Network Forum
On Tuesday, December 11th, 2007, AMG-SIU attended the 4th Nationwide Health Information Network Forum, which focused on sharing experiences from trial implementations of several HIEs (health information exchanges). The event gave the public a chance to interact with stakeholders from the public and private sector, including government and industry representatives. Work is continuing on standards harmonization through HITSP, the Health Information Technology Standards Panel, coordination of efforts/governance under the proposed AHIC 2.0 (American Health Information Community) with the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT, and in many other organizations.
One of the most exciting and useful implementations of an HIE presented was that of the Camino de Salud/Long Beach Network for Health, which implemented a web-based electronic health record which, according to their studies, has actually been quite well received by their organizational stakeholders. Interestingly, this project consulted with the Kay Center for e-Health Research at the School of Information Science at Claremont Graduate University. AMG-SIU is proud to have three employees who are alumni of the CGU school of IS!
The challenges posed by creating such a large-scale, interconnected system such as a national health information network are no doubt immense and akin to the challenges in building the original Internet. With the enormous public and private support behind the effort, even if such a system is not adopted by everyone, the benefits of such a system may offer tremendous value for those who do use it. AMG-SIU wishes all stakeholders many successes and a safe, secure, private, vibrant and healthy future!