Why is the American Health Information Community necessary?

Answer

Interoperability is a shared goal across the health care industry by payers, providers, vendors, and consumers. The multitude of competitive interests in the marketplace has prevented a unified effort to achieve common standards and interoperability. The national strategy for achieving interoperability of digital health information calls for Federal agencies – who pay more than one third of all health care costs – to collaborate with private payers in developing and adopting an architecture, standards, certification process, and a method of governance for ongoing implementation of health IT. Once the market has structure, patients, providers, medical professionals, and vendors will be better able to innovate, create efficiencies, and improve care.

HHS, in conjunction with other federal entities, will do its part by adopting standards and data-sharing processes for Internet-based applications that will help Federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare support the use of digital and interoperable health records that are privacy-protected and secure. The Community will help the Federal government make this transition in a smooth, market-led way.