Who sets standards for health information exchange?
Several efforts are under way to develop nationwide approaches to health information exchange. Many efforts seek to balance a need for uniformity—in order to allow interoperability—against concerns that the market and technology still are emerging and that premature standardization will dampen innovation. As experts in balancing national and local concerns, states have a key role in the evolution of health information technology. In 2004, President Bush laid out his vision for most Americans to have access to EHRs by 2014. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) was established in the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate federal efforts on this initiative. The time-limited American Health Information Community (AHIC), an advisory board comprised of HIT interest groups, provided recommendations to the secretary of Health and Human Services about how to make electronic health records interoperable and secure. A parallel process, fun
