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Biosecurity News in Brief
AHIC Successor Group Established, Board of Directors AppointedBy Christine SooHoo, October 6, 2008 On September 23, 2008, American Health Information Community (AHIC) Successor, Inc.—the organization being established as a successor to the current AHIC advisory board—announced the appointment of 15 individuals from the healthcare and information technology communities to serve on its board of directors.1 The Board will begin work immediately on “defining the strategies by which the organization will fulfill its mission to develop a unified approach in creating an effective, interoperable nationwide health information system in the United States,” and the AHIC Successor group will take over for the original AHIC advisory group in December of this year. The current AHIC is a federally chartered advisory committee consisting of public-and private-sector leaders who advise the Secretary of HHS on adopting health information technology. AHIC has focused primarily on advising HHS about the creation of common standards that allow for health information systems to interact and exchange information in a way that ensures confidentiality, privacy, and security for patients.2 AHIC Successor’s Board of Directors represent a wide range of stakeholders including healthcare providers, insurers, public health departments, healthcare quality improvement organizations, and consumer representatives.1 The appointment is the next step toward establishing a universally used health information technology (HIT) system across the nation, and it is a milestone for establishing AHIC Successor as an independent public-private partnership.3 According to the Department of Homeland Security (HHS), an interoperable healthcare information system would enable the movement of clinical information electronically among providers. It would also improve healthcare quality, reduce medical errors, reduce healthcare costs, increase administrative efficiencies, and expand access to affordable care. The positive impacts of a healthcare IT system would also reach public health, assisting with the detection of infectious disease outbreaks, tracking chronic disease management, and the evaluating the quality of health care.4 Additionally, the ability to manage medical information comprehensively and ensure that the exchange of information between healthcare consumers and providers is secure is seen as critical to an effective response during a catastrophic event such as a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.3 References
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