Health Information Technology Initiative Major Accomplishments: 2004-2006
HHS accomplishments leading up to 2007 have laid the foundation of a robust health IT initiative that is already bringing value to health-care consumers and providers. With the organizations and contracts in place and a standards process established, additional progress for the year ahead will be rapid.

Linking Electronic Medical Records To Large-Scale Simulation Models: Can We Put Rapid Learning On Turbo?
Clinical trials and other well-designed empirical studies are essential for helping us understand human physiology, disease, and the effects of tests and treatments. They are our fundamental anchor to reality. However, it is not feasible to answer all questions with empirical studies. For questions that cannot be answered with empirical studies, mathematical models can be useful. In particular, large-scale, physiology-based models can help answer a wide variety of questions ranging from physiological pathways; to clinical trials; to management tools such as guidelines, performance measures, priority setting, forecasting, and cost-effectiveness. The Archimedes model has demonstrated the feasibility of building these types of models.

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprize (IHE) Creates the Quality Domain
IHE has announced the launch of the Quality Domain. The mission of this new domain is to address the infrastructure needed to share information relevant to quality improvement. The domain will be sponsored by HIMSS, RSNA, ACC and the American Heart Association. The sponsors will hold a teleconference on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 1:00 pm Central Time to introduce the initiative and share information with organizations interested in participating in the Domain's development. Interested parties are welcome to take part.

Christiansen's IT Law: Information Law Theory and Practice
This blog is run by John R. Christiansen as a forum for discussion of problems, issues and prospects in the arts and sciences of digital information and information technology management. The emphasis is on legal architectures for information technology management, principally information security legal compliance and risk management, with occasional forays into related topic areas.

President Bush Delivers 2007 State of the Union Address
"We need to reduce costs and medical errors with better information technology...In all we do, we must remember that the best health care decisions are made not by government and insurance companies, but by patients and their doctors."

Primary Care Informatics Working Group
This board is designed for you to post comments about improving electronic health records.

PharmedOut
PharmedOut is an independent, publicly funded project that empowers physicians to identify and counter inappropriate pharmaceutical promotion practices. PharmedOut promotes evidence-based medicine by providing news, resources, and links to pharma-free CME courses.