US Tries Open-Source Model for Health Data Systems

The government’s lofty vision of bringing health care into the computer age to improve care and curb costs will come to nothing, unless some mundane technical problems can be solved.

A basic challenge is for doctors, hospitals, patients and public health authorities to be able to easily and securely share information — things like a person’s vital signs, diagnosis, lab tests and drugs prescribed. A fancy electronic patient record, unconnected, is just an expensive way to capture data. The government’s office of national health information technology announced on Wednesday an important step toward the goal of widespread sharing of health data.

Two pilot projects, the government said, have successfully used new government-endorsed Internet-based tools for exchanging health information among institutions. The two pilot projects are in Minnesota and Rhode Island, and the information includes immunization records sent to a public health authority and patient data sent from general practitioners to specialists. Other pilot projects will soon be started in New York, Connecticut, Tennessee, Oklahoma and California.