national i mean nationwide health

National (I mean, Nationwide) Health Information Network, Round 2

The next round of Nationwide Health Information Network projects is

set to launch. For those who missed Round 1, the Office of the

National Coordinator (ONC) let 4 contracts a couple of years ago to

consortia led by large IT-type companies to develop prototypes for a

Nationwide Health Information Network (which was, at the time, called

the National Health Information Network). Those companies were:

Accenture, Computer Sciences Corporation, IBM, and Northrop Grumman.

The contracts were originally let under David Brailer, the past head

of ONC, but he left while the contracts were underway. Looking at the

work undertaken by these groups and the ensuing "deliverables"

resulting from those contracts, many of us are left scratching our

heads about what the NHIN prototypes were supposed to accomplish in

the first place. You can judge for yourself by looking at the results

of the 3rd NHIN Forum held earlier this year.

So, fast forward to the present. Late last week a "pre-solicitation

notice" appeared quietly on the FedBizOpps website. The synopsis reads

as follows:

As part of advancing the President's Health Information Technology

agenda, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health

Information Technology (ONC) of the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services (HHS), will be soliciting proposals to establish

Nationwide Health Information Network Trial Implementations. The

purpose of this project is for state, regional and non-geographic

health information exchange consortia to become components of the

"network of networks" that is the nationwide Health Information

Network (NHIN). These consortia should combine inclusive

organizational governance and trust relationships, provider

organizations and healthcare markets, consumer applications and

participating consumers, existing health exchange activities and

technical expertise. Each Contractor shall work cooperatively with

the other contractors to develop specifications for, and trial

implementations of, the NHIN, and test these trial implementations

with each other to ensure that they can all work together to

implement an interoperable "network of networks" - built on top of

the Internet. The trial implementations shall demonstrate core

services, exchange summary patient records and support the

capabilities outlined in several AHIC use cases based on shared

NHIN standards and specifications. The trial implementations shall

demonstrate the represented information exchanges with provider

organizations, personal health records, specialty networks, and the

other NHIN contractors. This is a partial small business set-aside

with up to a third of the contracts awarded to small businesses. We

anticipate the award of up to 10 contracts. The period of

performance shall be for a period of 1 year, with two 1-year

options. Options will be evaluated with the base period. Options

may or may not be exercised based on performance of the contractor

and the needs of the Government.

I don't really know what all of the above means -- there was a public

conference call yesterday which I wasn't able to attend, and the full

solicitation won't be released for another 2 weeks. We're still

struggling nationally, regionally, and locally with the question of

how to get this "health IT thing" done within a political-economic

system that: 1) professes to be market-driven, 2) is timid about

admitting how much is actually government-driven, and 3) thus has a

hard time figuring out how to respond when the market fails. Perhaps