The eventual aim of the initiative is to enable patients and authorized physicians in each US state to share personal health information on a voluntary basis.
The new prototype will allow authorized users of three health information networks located in California, Massachusetts and Indiana to share information both within and among these local regions and communities.
It is hoped the experiment will serve as a laboratory for the Common Framework developed by Connecting for Health in 2004, which offers a set of policy principles, guidelines and technical specifications to facilitate and protect the electronic sharing of medical information among authorized individuals and institutions.
Patients and their physicians must be able to send and receive vital medical information at a moment’s notice, if we are to improve the quality of health care, reduce medical errors, lower costs, and empower patients to take an active role in making health care decisions that affect them and those they love, said Carol Diamond, chair of Connecting for Health.
According to the Markle Foundation, which is managing the project, the prototype will also inform government, consumers and the private sector about immediate steps to achieve improvements in health care quality and efficiency.
