Latest News ... Launching the Policy Exchange AdvanceHIT is a platform to facilitate exchange of informed knowledge and discourse across an integrated network of leading U.S. advocates, scholars, companies, institutions, and organizations, all seeking to insure a trustworthy and viable Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). Even though AdvanceHIT is already active, it is in the process of being organized as a consortium. Why AdvanceHIT started The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ("ARRA" or the stimulus bill) aims to ignite widespread adoption of health information technology (HIT) and the NHIN by providing financial compensation to qualifying healthcare providers and hospitals starting in 2011 [1]. ARRA provides an abundance of funds, political will and policy attention to get it done. An optimal NHIN maximizes "meaningful" data sharing while providing guarantees of privacy protection. So, it is surprising that the recently released list of requirements for meaningful uses from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid includes no privacy incentives [2]. Further, the group within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services empowered to help lead the NHIN effort is the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), which has already achieved many heroic feats using existing frameworks and prior knowledge. However, due to regulatory restrictions, the national approach to NHIN architecture is "let 1000 flowers bloom" [3]. Regional and state groups receive financial support but are left alone to navigate the immature technical terrain and make isolated decisions. This lack of overall architectural coordination yields autonomous local NHINs that will not interoperate and will expose patient information to different data sharing hazards that left unaddressed can seriously undermine patient and doctor trust in the NHIN [4]. A recent review of the NHIN revealed critical issues (i.e., lack of interoperability, serious privacy problems, poor utility and uncertain sustainability) [4]. Optimal solutions seem best realized by infusing innovation and new knowledge into existing regulatory regimes and traditional frameworks. The AdvanceHIT mission AdvanceHIT seeks to provide well-formed, timely information and analyses to ONC, decision-makers, technology developers, policy makers, and the public so that no matter the services or technical architecture deployed by local NHINs, the overall NHIN will give universal responsible guarantees to patients, providers, and other stakeholders. AdvanceHIT's strategy AdvanceHIT's most immediate strategy involves knowledge sharing, issue spotting, performing critical analyses, brainstorming on problems and solutions, bridging communities, and making entry points to participation more accessible. Work products are expected to primarily be white papers, published papers, commentaries, workshop reports, sample code, demonstrations, and surveys. There is no intention to directly construct an NHIN, but instead to help others make informed decisions so the NHIN will have a better likelihood of user acceptance, societal adoption, and organizational uptake. Similarly, there is no expectation of promoting any one design, viewpoint or outcome, but to educate and inform discussion on the full spectrum of perspectives and options. People of AdvanceHIT Founding participants are faculty from the following academic institutions (below are principal contacts at each school). Latanya Sweeney, Harvard, School of Engineering and Applied Science Tim Berners-Lee, MIT, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab Jim Herbsleb, Carnegie Mellon, School of Computer Science Denise Anthony, Dartmouth, Institute for Security, Technology, & Society (more)