U.S. Companies Announce Collaborative Health IT Project

WASHINGTON–As the cost of providing health care continues to
rise, a group of five major American companies is funding
development of an Internet-based network that will store the
lifelong electronic health records of more than 2.5 million people
starting next year.

The group, including Applied Materials, BP America, Intel,
Pitney Bowes and Wal-Mart, said Wednesday that the “Dossia” system
will collect the personal health information of the companies’
employees and their dependants and keep it in secured
databases.

With the system, individuals will be able to organize and
summarize their health information. Their records will span a
lifetime and will move with them if they change employers, health
plans or doctors. The records will be accessible only by the
individual or with their permission.

A non-profit is developing the system, which is based on the
Connecting for Health Common Framework, a set of design and policy
standards established by a collaboration of health industry
stakeholders and funded by the Markle and Robert Wood Johnson
Foundations.

Citing employers’ increasing health care costs as a threat to
the country’s competitiveness, the companies said that, as the
biggest buyers of health care, they “can and should play a role in
improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care
system.” Dossia is intended to get rid of redundancy and errors,
and contribute to the overall efficiency of the nation’s health
care system.

HHS has called on companies to support electronic health
records, calling them “key to reforming health care in America,”
and has created several health information technology pilot
programs. In 2004, President Bush set a goal for the majority of
Americans to have EHRs by 2014.