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Background

Overview

Much progress has been made since President George W. Bush issued an executive order in April 2004 announcing his commitment to using health IT to reduce medical errors, increase efficiency, and give consumers and physicians better information. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) was created in 2004 and several initiatives were launched to provide foundational support for adopting and using health IT. These initiatives include the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), the Health Information Privacy and Security Collaboration (HISPC), and four prototype architectures for a nationwide health information network (NHIN).

 

In 2005, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Michael O. Leavitt created the American Health Information Community (AHIC), a federal advisory body made up of public-and private-sector leaders, to make recommendations to the Secretary about how to accelerate adoption of interoperable health IT in a smooth, market-led way. From its inception, the AHIC was conceived to be an interim organization that would sunset by December 2008, giving way to a new, public-private partnership. Plans are now under way to transition the AHIC to a public-private partnership based in the private sector.

 

Background on the AHIC Successor

In August 2007, HHS issued a White Paper and, in December 2007, a Notice of Funding Availability (NoFA) for an entity or a set of entities that would “design, establish, and operate the American Health Information Community (AHIC) Successor.” Stage One of the process is to “support the design and establishment of the AHIC Successor within the first four months of the grant period,” which includes creating a new legal entity. Stage Two involves establishing the AHIC Successor, with a full transition to the Successor completed by late fall 2008. The NoFA and White Paper identify key areas of the technical aspects of health IT, such as accelerating and coordinating current AHIC interoperability initiatives, including harmonizing and certifying standards of health IT; prioritizing stakeholder requirements for nationwide health IT interoperability; advancing the harmonization of technology standards and policies; enabling the NHIN (a “network of networks”); and addressing certification.