HHS leading EHR effort on Gulf Coast

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is collaborating with the Southern Governors' Association and the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Services (LHSS) to plan and promote the use of electronic health records on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast.

As hospitals and health centers rebuild, the partnership will help create, disseminate, and support new records that will eventually connect with each other for an interoperable health information exchange, reports HHS.

The agreement with the governors' association will unite local and national resources and coordinate planning for digital health information programs. It will also develop and provide support for a prototype for sharing health information. HHS recently awarded four contracts to teams to develop prototypes for a national health information technology architecture.

Source: Medical Records Briefing