Diabetes information portal: a demonstration project for the national health information infrastructure.

Corresponding Author: Youssef T. AL-sheikh, Ph.D., M.S., C(ASCP), Moran Eye Center, 65 North Medical Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84132; email address [email protected] Health information technologies can deliver complete medical information to the point of care when needed. The set of organizing principles, systems, standards, procedures, and policies that integrates health information technologies is known as the National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII).1 NHII would allow care providers to concentrate their efforts on applying judgment and experience to the clinical problem at hand based on complete patient data and decision support systems. Moreover, with presently available Internet and encryption technologies, patients with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, can be monitored at home and can seek information to educate themselves about their clinical conditions. In addition, the national objectives for Healthy People 2010 can be tracked and thus could prevent disease and promote health more effectively at national, state, and local levels. Although many existing programs and activities in the public and private sectors provide a foundation for the NHII, they lack the interconnections that could make them more useful in concert than they are as isolated pieces. Therefore, developing means and designating standards to interconnect data sources, enhancing data exchange and aggregation, and providing credible information for health care providers and consumers are cornerstones to implementing an NHII. Operational demonstration projects at the local level may provide organizational and implementation models that other communities can follow and can become the foundation for the NHII.2