US health care reform efforts through history

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court's ruling on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law follows a century of debate over what role the government should play in helping people in the United States afford medical care. A look at the issue through the years:

1912: Former President Theodore Roosevelt champions national health insurance as he unsuccessfully tries to ride his progressive Bull Moose Party back to the White House.

1929: Baylor Hospital in Texas originates group health insurance. Dallas teachers pay 50 cents a month to cover up to 21 days of hospital care per year.

1935: President Franklin D. Roosevelt favors creating national health insurance amid the Great Depression but decides to push for Social Security first.

1942: Roosevelt establishes wage and price controls during World War II. Businesses can't attract workers with higher pay so they compete through added benefits, including health insurance, which grows into a workplace perk.

1945: President Harry Truman calls on Congress to create a national insurance program for those who pay voluntary fees. The American Medical Association denounces the idea as "socialized medicine" and it goes nowhere.

1960: John F. Kennedy makes health care a major campaign issue but as president can't get a plan for the elderly through Congress.

1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson's legendary arm-twisting and a Congress dominated by his fellow Democrats lead to creation of two landmark government health programs: Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor.

1974: President Richard Nixon wants to require employers to cover their workers and create federal subsidies to help everyone else buy private insurance. The Watergate scandal intervenes.

1976: President Jimmy Carter pushes a mandatory national health plan, but economic recession helps push it aside.

1986: President Ronald Reagan signs COBRA, a requirement that employers let former workers stay on the company health plan for 18 months after leaving a job, with workers bearing the cost.

1988: Congress expands Medicare by adding a prescription drug benefit and catastrophic care coverage. It doesn't last long. Barraged by protests from older Americans upset about paying a tax to finance the additional coverage, Congress repeals the law the next year.

1993: President Bill Clinton puts first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in charge of developing what becomes a 1,300-page plan for universal coverage. It requires businesses to cover their workers and mandates that everyone have health insurance. The plan meets Republican opposition, divides Democrats and comes under a firestorm of lobbying from businesses and the health care industry. It dies in the Senate.

1997: Clinton signs bipartisan legislation creating a state-federal program to provide coverage for millions of children in families of modest means whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid.

2003: President George W. Bush persuades Congress to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare in a major expansion of the program for older people.

2008: Hillary Rodham Clinton promotes a sweeping health care plan in her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. She loses to Obama, who has a less comprehensive plan.

2009: Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress spend an intense year ironing out legislation to require most companies to cover their workers; mandate that everyone have coverage or pay a fine; require insurance companies to accept all comers, regardless of any pre-existing conditions; and assist people who can't afford insurance.

2010: With no Republican support, Congress passes the measure, designed to extend health care coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people. Republican opponents scorned the law as "Obamacare."

2012: On a campaign tour in the Midwest, Obama himself embraces the term "Obamacare" and says the law shows "I do care."

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Health Plan Executives Have Unique Opportunity to Experience the Power of Health Messages Through the Eyes of the ...

Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 11:35 AM EDT - U.S. Markets close in 4 hrs 25 mins

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CORHIO, Colorado Health Care Leaders Issue Report on Strategies to Integrate Behavioral and Physical Health Through ...

DENVER, April 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- As a measure to improve integration of behavioral and physical health, the Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO) partnered with a multi-stakeholder behavioral health Steering Committee, and solicited feedback from communities across Colorado, to create a report with recommendations and future strategies for effective inclusion of behavioral health in health information exchange (HIE). The report was written as part of the CORHIO Behavioral Health Information Exchange Project with support from Rose Community Foundation.

The report is now available on the CORHIO website at www.corhio.org.

"Unfortunately, there is still a stigma associated with mental health conditions and some people fear that their diagnosis may fall into the wrong hands and will be used against them," says Amanda Kearney-Smith, director of the Colorado Mental Wellness Network and member of the project's Steering Committee. "We have to be sure to strike a careful balance between protecting individual privacy with the need to have comprehensive information available for high-quality health care treatment and services."

To solicit information for the report, CORHIO helped facilitate six meetings in communities across Colorado, which were chosen to represent a broad cross-section of perspectives and attitudes regarding HIE. A total of 124 consumers, physicians, and other behavioral health stakeholders were in attendance to discuss the concerns, opportunities and priorities of exchanging behavioral health information. The meetings took place in collaboration with community mental health centers and other behavioral health community organizations, so participants could feel comfortable and have open and honest dialogue.

A few key points that came out of the community discussions include:

Consumers expressed significant interest in having access to their health information within the HIE.Both physicians and patients expressed significant concerns, such as privacy issues and inappropriate use of information.Behavioral health stakeholders agree that better information sharing can lead to better outcomes for individuals and populations receiving behavioral health care.Participants expressed they would have more comfort with information sharing if there were more choice about which information would be shared with whom. Current models of all-in or all-out information sharing do not seem to meet the needs of this community.Across all six events, only one participant felt that better information sharing was not needed.

Studies have shown that the average life expectancy for those with serious mental illness ranges from 13 to 30 years less than the rest of the population.[1] Much of this can be attributed to fragmented, inconsistent, and episodic care. Individuals requiring behavioral health services have a unique need for integrated care due to frequent use of the healthcare system and a greater need to coordinate care among diverse providers. However, today, behavioral health care services are not well integrated with physical or medical care. According to the CORHIO report, nearly 90 percent of participants surveyed agree that behavioral health should be considered a part of a person's overall health care.

"HIE is an invaluable tool for the behavioral health community because it enables information to truly follow consumers through the entire treatment path, across a variety of care settings. It provides immediate access to vital patient information which reduces the chance that a consumer will experience a drug interaction or other medical complication and improves the overall consumer experience as they navigate the health care system," said CORHIO Policy Director, Liza Fox-Wylie. "CORHIO remains committed to working with the behavioral health and physical health communities to improve care coordination and population health outcomes through HIE, while protecting patients' rights to privacy."

CORHIO is developing an action plan based on the results and recommendations in this report, including working with project Steering Committee members and other stakeholder organizations on consumer, provider and policymaker education and working with CORHIO's technology partner, Medicity, to improve the robustness of HIE technology to support more granular options for patient choice regarding which information is shared with whom.

In September 2010, the Rose Community Foundation awarded CORHIO a two-year grant to support the Behavioral Health and Health Information Exchange Project, which funded the creation of CORHIO's behavioral health report. "Individuals' physical health, mental health and substance use are closely intertwined," said Whitney Connor, Rose Community Foundation's health program officer. "Provider access to timely information about their patients' medical and behavioral health is critical to delivering effective care."

About CORHIO
CORHIO is dedicated to improving health care quality for all Coloradans through health information exchange (HIE). As the state designated entity for HIE, CORHIO collaborates with health care stakeholders including physicians, hospitals, clinics, public health, long-term care, laboratories, health plans and patients to improve care collaboration through secure systems and processes for sharing clinical information. CO-REC, a CORHIO initiative, assists primary care providers in adopting, implementing and becoming meaningful users of electronic health record (EHR) systems. CORHIO is a not-for-profit supported in large part by grants, including awards from the Colorado Health Foundation and from federal ARRA HITECH funds. CORHIO's technical infrastructure is built on industry-leading HIE technology developed and maintained by Medicity.  For more information about CORHIO, please visit www.corhio.org.

[1] Colton CW, Manderscheid RW. Congruencies in increased mortality rates, years of potential life lost, and causes of death among public mental health clients in eight states. Prev Chronic Dis [serial online] 2006 Apr. URL: http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2006/apr/05_0180.htm.

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America's health care reform through history

The three days of arguments beginning before the Supreme Court on Monday may mark a turning point in a century of debate over what role the government should play in helping all Americans afford medical care. A look at the issue through the years:

1912:

Former President Theodore Roosevelt champions national health insurance as he tries to ride his progressive Bull Moose Party back to the White House. It's an idea ahead of its time; health insurance is a rarity and medical fees are relatively low because doctors cannot do much for most patients. But medical breakthroughs are beginning to revolutionize hospitals and drive up costs. Roosevelt loses the race.

1929:

Baylor Hospital in Texas originates group health insurance. Dallas teachers pay 50 cents a month to cover up to 21 days of hospital care per year. The plan grows into Blue Cross.

1932:

After five years of work, doctors, economists and hospital administrators on the independent Committee on the Costs of Medical Care publish their report about the increasing costs of health care and the number of people going untreated. They say health care should be available to all.

1935:

Americans struggle to pay for medical care amid the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt favors creating national health insurance, but decides to push for Social Security first. He never gets the health program passed.

1942:

Roosevelt establishes wage and price controls as part of the nation's emergency response to World War II. Businesses can't attract workers with higher pay so instead they compete through added benefits, including health insurance, which unexpectedly grows into a workplace perk. Workplace plans get a boost the following year when the government says it won't tax employers' contributions to employee health insurance.

1945:

Saying medical care is a right of all Americans, President Harry Truman calls on Congress to create a national insurance program for those who pay voluntary fees. The American Medical Association denounces the idea as "socialized medicine." Truman tries for years but can't get it passed.

1960:

John F. Kennedy makes health care a major campaign issue but as president can't get a plan for the elderly through Congress.

1965:

Medicare for people age 65 and older and Medicaid for the poor signed into law. President Lyndon B. Johnson's legendary arm-twisting and a Congress dominated by his fellow Democrats succeeded in creating the kind of landmark health care programs that eluded his predecessors.

1971:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., offers his proposal for a government-run plan to be financed through payroll taxes.

1974:

President Richard Nixon puts forth a plan to cover all Americans through private insurers. Employers would be required to cover their workers and federal subsidies would help others buy insurance. The Watergate scandal intervenes.

1976:

Jimmy Carter pushes a mandatory national health plan, but a deep economic recession helps push it aside.

1986:

Congress passes and President Ronald Reagan signs into law COBRA, a requirement that employers let former workers stay on the company health care plan for 18 months after leaving a job, with the worker bearing the cost.

1988:

Congress expands Medicare by adding a prescription drug benefit and catastrophic care coverage. It doesn't last long. Barraged by protests from older people upset about paying a tax to finance the additional coverage, Congress repeals the law the next year.

1992:

Helping the uninsured becomes a big issue of the Democratic primaries and spills over into the general election. Democrat Bill Clinton wants to require businesses to provide insurance to their employees, with the government helping everyone else; Republican President George H.W. Bush proposes tax breaks to make it easier to afford insurance.

1993:

Newly elected, Clinton puts first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in charge of developing what becomes a 1,300-page plan for universal coverage. It requires businesses to cover their workers and mandates that everyone have insurance. The plan meets strong Republican opposition, divides congressional Democrats and comes under a firestorm of lobbying from businesses and the health care industry. It never gets to a vote in the Democrat-led Senate.

2003:

President George W. Bush persuades Congress to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare in a major expansion of Johnson's "Great Society" program for seniors.

2008:

Hillary Rodham Clinton makes a sweeping health care plan, including a requirement that everyone have coverage, central to her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. She loses to Barack Obama, who promotes his own less comprehensive plan.

2009:

Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress spend an intense year ironing out a compromise that requires companies other than very small businesses to cover their workers, mandates that everyone have insurance or pay a fine, requires insurance companies to accept all comers, regardless of any pre-existing conditions, and assists people who can't afford insurance.

2010:

Congress passes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, designed to extend health care coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people. Obama signs it into law March 23.

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Regence Rx and Catalyst Health Solutions Announce Pharmacy Benefit Management Agreement Through 2017

Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 10:54 PM EDT - U.S. Markets closed

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Changing Healthcare through IT Innovation

David Blumenthal, MD, is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Care Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners Health System and Harvard Medical School. He also serves as Chief Health Information and Innovation Officer at Partners Health System in Boston, MA. From 2009 to 2011, Dr. Blumenthal was the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under President Barack Obama. He spoke at HSPH on Feb. 6, 2012, as part of the Decision-making: Voices from the Field series.

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CNN: Creating wealth through health

Kenyan social entrepreneur Dan Ogola will be featured on CNN's The Next List this Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.

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CNN: Creating wealth through health

Kenyan social entrepreneur Dan Ogola will be featured on CNN's The Next List this Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.

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Highmark Selects Verizon to Help Develop First Statewide Health Information Exchange to Improve Patient Care Through ...

NEW YORK and PITTSBURGH, Feb. 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Patients accessing health care services across Pennsylvania will soon benefit from fewer duplicative diagnostic tests, faster retrieval of clinical information, stronger safety measures and better coordination of care – all via a new IT platform that enables the sharing of patient information across multiple health care systems.

Highmark Inc. on Tuesday (Feb. 21) announced an agreement under which Verizon Enterprise Solutions will deploy and manage the technology infrastructure for Highmark's new health information exchange that will soon link health care organizations across western Pennsylvania that serve millions of people.  Highmark also plans to extend its HIE across the state over the next two years.  

The first health care organization to join the Highmark project is West Penn Allegheny Health System consisting of Allegheny General Hospital, Allegheny Valley Hospital, Canonsburg General Hospital, Forbes Regional Hospital and Western Pennsylvania Hospital.  Other health care organizations intending to participate in the Highmark HIE are: Butler Health System; Jefferson Regional Medical Center; MedExpress Urgent Care; Vantage Health Network (Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Meadville Medical Center, Millcreek Community Hospital, Saint Vincent Hospital); and The Washington Hospital.  Highmark is also in discussions with other health care organizations across Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

"We welcome all hospitals, physicians and health insurers to become part of our HIE," said Deborah L. Rice, Highmark's executive vice president of health services. "At the very core of this HIE is improved patient care, and that's the foundation of what our customers want from us and their care providers. It's about working collaboratively as a health care community and using the available health care data to provide the best possible care."

As the push to transform health care through technology takes hold, health information exchanges are gaining acceptance.  Health care organizations of all sizes and types are using HIEs to overcome the long-standing obstacle of incompatible health IT platforms and software used to store patient data.  By facilitating the secure and compliant retrieval and sharing of patient clinical data among participating hospitals, clinics, physician practices and health care plans, the technology helps enable the quality, safety and efficiency of patient care.

"Health information exchanges address many of the interoperability, security and compliance issues that have long impeded the sharing of digital clinical information across the health care ecosystem," said Dr. Peter Tippett, vice president and chief medical officer, Verizon Connected Healthcare Solutions, the company's health IT practice group.  "The work we are doing with Highmark underscores the potential health IT has to drive the development of patient-centered care models by unlocking the value of clinical information that's accessible across communities, regions and health care providers."

The Highmark HIE will be powered by the Verizon Health Information Exchange, an interoperable health IT platform delivered via Verizon's cloud-computing infrastructure.  The platform consolidates patient clinical data from disparate providers and translates the information into a standardized format for secure access over the Web, offering health care professionals an effective way to obtain a more complete view of a patient's health history.  The platform uses strong identity-access-management controls to provide security for sensitive patient information and enables members to retain their existing systems, processes and workflows, thereby reducing the need for additional capital expenditures. 

Highmark also has leveraged the expertise of Accenture, a global leader in management consulting and technology services, to assist health care providers with connecting to Highmark's HIE, which has been in development for the past 18 months.

About Highmark Inc.

Highmark Inc., based in Pittsburgh, is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an association of independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans. Highmark serves 4.8 million members in Pennsylvania and West Virginia through the company's health care benefits business and is one of the largest Blue plans in the nation. Highmark has 19,500 employees across the country. For more than 70 years, Highmark's commitment to the community has consistently been among the company's highest priorities as it strives to positively impact the communities where we do business. For more information, visit www.highmark.com.

Highmark Inc. is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an association of independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans. For more information, visit www.highmark.com.

About Verizon

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to consumer, business, government and wholesale customers.  Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, with nearly 109 million total connections nationwide.  Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers in more than 150 countries, including all of the Fortune 500.  A Dow 30 company with $111 billion in 2011 revenues, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of nearly 194,000.  For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

VERIZON'S ONLINE NEWS CENTER: Verizon news releases, executive speeches and biographies, media contacts, high-quality video and images, and other information are available at Verizon's News Center on the World Wide Web at www.verizon.com/news.  To receive news releases by email, visit the News Center and register for customized automatic delivery of Verizon news releases.

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‘Health Care Reform’ - Book Review - A Cartoon to Cut Through Red Tape

Now someone has done that, offering an easy-to-understand cartoon walk through the health care policy landscape. In “Health Care Reform,” readers see patients, workers, employers and others confront some of the legislation’s knotty issues, especially the mandate requiring everyone to have health insurance, the chief issue the Supreme Court will take up in March when justices hear challenges to the bill.

Prominent among the book’s comic characters is its author, Jonathan Gruber. Dr. Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, consulted with the Obama administration and Congress as the legislation was drafted, and he was one of the architects of the plan on which it is based, the Massachusetts health care law that Mitt Romney pushed through when he was governor but seems ready to forget in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination.

For critics of either law, Dr. Gruber’s résumé offers reason enough to consign the book to the dustbin. But that would be a mistake.

Though in the book, the cartoon Dr. Gruber makes no bones about his enthusiasm for the laws, he also lays out even-handedly what the biggest problems are with the way we finance health care today and how the federal law addresses them.

Through drawings by Nathan Schreiber, the book tracks the journeys of four fictional Americans: Anthony, who is, like most of us, an employee of a company with health benefits; Betty, who is covered by Medicare; Carlos, whose employer does not offer health benefits, leaving him to the mercy of the “nongroup market”; and Dinah, who has no coverage at all.

As we follow them through job loss, auto wrecks and other health care woes, we absorb vivid lessons in what Dr. Gruber calls “the two-headed beast” of American health finance: rising costs, and the rising numbers of Americans without adequate health insurance.

Cartoon characters in the book raise many of the questions Americans have wondered about. For example, the fact that thousands of Americans die each year because of inadequate insurance coverage may be “all very sad,” the employed Anthony says, “but I am insured. Why should I care?”

Employer-sponsored coverage is eroding, the cartoon Dr. Guber tells him. And anyway, he asks, “what are you going to do for coverage if you get laid off or your employer stops offering it?”

The book explains how the act bars insurance companies from dropping people who get sick, or charging them more, or refusing to cover care for pre-existing conditions. It also tells what happened when five Northeastern states tried to carry out these rules: “Those five states became five of the most expensive places in the nation” for insurance customers outside of large group plans.

“But there is a solution,” the cartoon Dr. Gruber goes on. “If we could guarantee that folks wouldn’t just buy insurance when sick, then insurers could price fairly.”

What is this guarantee? The individual mandate, perhaps the most controversial element of the federal health law and the principal issue before the high court. Under the mandate, people who do not have government- or employer-paid coverage will have to buy it, with help from government subsidies if they qualify. As a result, the pool of insurance customers will grow, in theory keeping rates down.

The Supreme Court may rule against the mandate and permit the rest of the law to stand. But, as the experience of the New England states shows and as the Obama administration has asserted, other features of the law may be unworkable without the mandate. Many healthy people would probably choose not to buy insurance, the cartoon Dr. Gruber explains, because under the law they will be able to buy it without substantial penalty if they need it. The result: higher rates for everyone.

Perhaps naturally, given the real-life Dr. Gruber’s enthusiasm for the legislation, the book sometimes sounds a bit rah-rah. And it occasionally wanders into the wonkish weeds — for example, in an explanation of the relative tax benefits businesses will enjoy under the new law when they compensate employees with health insurance coverage rather than raises in pay.

There are even those who will take issue with the book’s title. After all, one person’s reform is another person’s misguided interference. But in this case, given the enormity of the nation’s health insurance problem, the word feels fair enough.

Anyway, Dr. Gruber acknowledges that the full effect of the act is impossible to know until it plays out. He notes that the Congressional Budget Office predicts it will produce substantial big spending cuts, but he concedes that cost-cutting changes “aren’t easy to make.”

Going forward, he says, we will have to learn “what works and what doesn’t.”

That, too, like the book as a whole, is fair enough.

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Health 2.0 and ONC Launch Three New Challenges Through the Investing in Innovation (i2) Initiative

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire -01/30/12)- Over the past few weeks, Health 2.0 and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) announced the launch of three new Investing in Innovation (i2) Initiative competitions that challenge developer communities with creating innovative health information technology (HIT) solutions. The i2 program promotes the use of technology to drive better outcomes, engage users in their health and improve health care quality. The Health 2.0 Developer Challenge program is now accepting submissions for three new challenges, "Health Innovations in Commuting Challenge," "Discharge Follow-Up Appointment Challenge" and the "EHR Accessibility Module Challenge."

"Health 2.0 is proud to launch these three new Developer Challenges. The burgeoning Developer Challenge program has witnessed a tremendous increase in both number and quality of competition submissions," said Indu Subaiya, CEO and Co-chair of Health 2.0. "While Health 2.0 is many things, its innovation competitions are one of its most forward-thinking divisions -- thanks to the i2 program, we play a role in spurring innovation and improving the U.S. health care system."

Commuting is a component of daily life for 120 million Americans and has been shown to correlate with health problems including high cholesterol, recurring neck and back pain, and higher stress levels. The "Health Innovations in Commuting Challenge" calls on innovators to design concepts that would improve the health of commuters through enhanced data collection, exchange and analysis. Participants are asked to demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which commuting is correlated with health factors and to express the ways in which their models are innovative in diminishing commuting's deleterious effects on health. Submissions are due on Monday, March 5, 2012. The winner will present the submission on an ONC-hosted webinar and will have opportunities for future collaboration with industry leaders. For more details visit the "Health Innovations in Commuting Challenge" website.

Individuals with disabilities constitute 19 percent of the population five years and older, yet account for over a quarter ($400 billion) of all health expenditures. Accessibility and usability in health IT are high priority issues for the disability community. The "EHR Accessibility Module Challenge" tasks multi-disciplinary teams with creating and testing a module or application that makes it easy for disabled consumers to access and interact with the health data stored in their EHRs. Submissions are due on Monday, July 23, 2012. Prizes will total $85,000. The first place winner will receive $60,000 and a demo opportunity, the second place winner will receive $20,000 and the third place winner will receive $5,000. For more details, visit the "EHR Accessibility Module Challenge" website.

Nearly one in five patients from a hospital will be readmitted within 30 days, a large proportion of which can be prevented by improving communications and coordinating care before and after discharge from the hospital. The "Discharge Follow-Up Appointment Challenge" tasks developers to create easy-to-use web-based tools to make post-discharge follow-up appointment scheduling more effective and to facilitate collaboration between providers, caregivers and patients. The first place winner will receive partnership consideration with a pilot test bed community such as an ONC Beacon Community or a member of CMMI's Community-Based Care Transition Program, in addition to $5,000 to support a three-day site visit to the pilot community. Submissions are due on Monday, April 30, 2012. For more details visit the "Discharge Follow-Up Appointment Challenge" website.

"The Discharge Challenge is special because it serves as a follow-up to the very successful 'Ensuring Safe Transitions from Hospital to Home Challenge.' It gives teams that participated in the Safe Transitions Challenge the opportunity to build on their innovations and gives new teams that did not participate in the challenge the chance to provide innovative approaches to improving the care transition process," explains Matthew Holt, Co-Chair of Health 2.0. "Challenges are one means to positively expedite the implementation of technology in the health care space."

About ONC
ONC is the principal Federal entity charged with coordination of nationwide efforts to implement and use the most advanced health information technology and the electronic exchange of health information. The position of National Coordinator was created in 2004, through an Executive Order and legislatively mandated in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) of 2009. For more information, see http://healthit.hhs.gov/.

About Investing in Innovation (i2) Initiative
The Investing in Innovation (i2) program utilizes prizes and challenges to facilitate innovation and obtain solutions to intractable health IT problems. Aligned with the Administration's innovation agenda, i2 is the first federal program to operate under the authority of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. For details see http://www.health2challenge.org/onc-i2-challenges/

About Health 2.0
The conference. The media network. The innovation community. The Health 2.0 Conference is the leading showcase of cutting-edge innovation transforming the health care system. Since its beginning in 2007, Health 2.0 has served as a community resource for search and online tools to help consumers manage their health and connect to providers. Now that the industry has caught up, Health 2.0 covers the entire cloud, web, mobile and unplatforms technology revolution that is shaking up every sector of health care. For more, visit http://www.health2con.com.

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