Last month in Washington, D.C., the 5th Nationwide Health Information Network Forum was held, showcasing 14 months of groundbreaking trial implementations completed by the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). This work, carried out by members of a public-private "NHIN Cooperative," helped lay the foundation which will serve as the next step toward secure nationwide interoperable health information exchange. By making information available when and where it is needed, nationwide exchange of health information promises to increase health care quality, while reducing costs as well as medical errors.

Security of information and protection of privacy are essential to information exchange. In his keynote address to open the forum, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt underscored this point with his announcement of a privacy and security doctrine, made up of eight principles and a complete tool kit to help ensure consumers have protected access to their health information (through a Privacy and Security Framework).

"The work of the Nationwide Health Information Network has come a long way in the last year to create a health information exchange environment which fosters public-private cooperation, thereby empowering consumers to benefit from electronic health information," said Secretary Leavitt. "We need to continue encouraging the development of electronic health information exchange, in order to balance each individual's right to access their health information while still providing robust protection and security of personal health information."

As of October 2007, several forces converged to create a broadly-based NHIN Cooperative. HHS awarded contracts totaling $22.5 million to nine health information exchange organizations to begin trial implementations of the NHIN. The North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance (NCHICA) was awarded the NHIN contract for the state of North Carolina, and is responsible for setting up the North Carolina Health Information Exchange (NC HIE). MEDITECH customer Morehead Memorial Hospital (Eden, NC), one of five providers involved in the NC HIE, was able to demonstrate how reliable technology empowers consumers to securely manage and control their health information.

"Morehead Memorial is at the forefront of the MEDITECH community in their deployment of Advanced Clinical Systems, particularly in the Emergency Department," says Barbara Hobbs, manager for MEDITECH's electronic health records initiatives. "Their work and participation for the NHIN demonstration, as well as their involvement in NCHICA, exemplifies their commitment of deploying health information technology to improve patient safety and quality outcomes. We look forward to working closely with Morehead Memorial going forward, incorporating interoperable tools into their clinician workflow as they explore further deployment of these solutions."

Hobbs also believes that such partnerships as NCHICA go a long way to engender a collaborative spirit that furthers interoperability goals. "By bringing together stakeholders from across the state, they are furthering not just the cause of sharing data, but also using the data to achieve improved clinical outcomes and set an example of an attainable roadmap for other states to follow," she says.

In 2009, the NHIN will come on-line and begin to exchange LIVE data among those organizations which are ready, willing, and able to exchange health information using the NHIN specifications and standards. For more information on this interoperability project, please visit the the NHIN Web site and the NCHICA Web site.