This week, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) is sponsoring a series of demonstrations at the <a href="/directory/healthcare-information-and-management-systems-society-himss" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">HIMSS</a> <a href="/directory/interoperability" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">Interoperability Showcase that illustrate innovative efforts to achieve progress toward secure, nationwide information-exchange-hie" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">health information exchange across providers and jurisdictions.

The ONC and the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) showcase will feature 25 demonstrations that involve 42 organizations. These organizations illustrate broad uses of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), a set of standards, services, and policies that enable the secure exchange of health information over the internet.  The demonstrations also highlight the use of CONNECT, an open source NHIN gateway that was developed by the FHA program for organizations wanting to securely exchange health information using NHIN constructs.  Demonstrations are grouped into four areas that align with key health outcome policy priorities:

• Improving Quality, Safety, Efficiency and Reducing Health Disparities/li>
  <li>Improving Care Coordination
• Engaging Patients and Families in their Health Care
• Improving Population and Public Health

Examples of demonstrations include:

• Enhancing Wounded Warrior Care — a demo supported by the Department of Defense, the Veteran’s Health Administration and Kaiser Permanente. The organizations illustrate how data exchange using the NHIN can support continuity of care for wounded warriors.

• Supporting Midwestern Grandparents on Vacation — a demo supported by three health information exchanges (HIEs):   HealthBridge (a large urban Cincinnati HIE), Thayer County Health Services (a southeast Nebraska community HIE), and Redwood MedNet (a rural California HIE). Together, the HIEs exhibit how they’ve used the CONNECT toolkit to enable the exchange of electronic medication and diagnostic health data for grandparents from Nebraska as they travel across the country to visit their grandchildren in Ohio and California.

The ONC-FHA showcase will also feature 32 mini educational presentations about the demonstration programs and related topics.  Please join us!

The ONC Communications Team and David Blumenthal, MD, blog regularly at Health IT Buzz.