HHS Secretary Leavitt announced yesterday that in 2007 HHS will support trial implementations of the National Health Information Network, which will be the backbone of the Nation’s electronic health records system.

[In 2006] NHIN activities included “prototype architectures” developed by four consortia of health care and health information technology organizations through contracts with HHS. This “prototype architecture” work included developing functional requirements, security approaches and identifying needed standards for creating secure health information exchange in different health care markets. In January 2007, the four existing consortia will present the prototype architectures at the American Health Information Community and the third NHIN forum to be held in Washington, D.C. A summary report capturing key findings from this past year will be published in early 2007.