WASHINGTON, D.C. Congresswoman Nancy Johnson today (July 24,2003) introduced the “National Health Information Infrastructure Act of 2003” a measure to dramatically improve health care quality by revolutionizing how providers use clinical information to treat patients.

“The information systems that securely give you 24/7 access to your bank account can be adapted to transform American health care into a 21st Century system,” said Johnson, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee.

“Development of such a system is being impeded by the lack of comprehensive architectural standards to assure interoperability,” Johnson continued. “No provider wants to invest in an IBM for fear others will invest in a Mac. All systems must be able to communicate with each other. Within that framework, a health information technology infrastructure can develop and medicine can advance to the next level of quality care.”

I would like to ask everyone in the open source healthcare community to make comments here that can be collected and pointed to for reference.

If done correctly the NHII will be wonderful. But if we adopt the attitude in the US that we can build this without reference to the work already done worldwide then this effort will likely end up in the failure bin with the other large healthcare IT efforts.

One thing for certain, it cannot be accomplished without using “truely” open and collaborative processes. The EHR Collaborative (previously reported here) is certainly a step in the right direction.

My 2.5 cents……………..