The National Alliance for Health Information Technology (NAHIT) hasreleased a final consensus for the definitions of six key health ITterms.

The capability to integrate and visualize data and workflow status fromdisparate information systems in a diagnostic imaging practice is agoal that remains tantalizingly out of reach for many departmentadministrators. Although commercial implementations of suchapplications are available, budgetary restraints may relegate theirdeployment behind other critical capital acquisitions.

The field of imaging informatics is learning interoperability fromoutside the walls of healthcare, while pursuing a definition that seeksto differentiate itself from health IT or radiology, according toJames Whitfill, MD, who made several presentations at the 2008 Societyof Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) meeting in Seattle.

Mike Leavitt, secretary for the department of Health and Human Services, believes that President George W. Bush’s 10-year plan forelectronic medical records (EMRs) will be accomplished, if notexceeded, by 2014.

For a state health information exchange (HIE) to be successful, lobbying in the legislature plays an integral role, reported Gina Perez, executive director of the Delaware Health Information Network and Devore Culver, executive director of Maine's HealthInfoNet, at a Dallas conference sponsored by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology.

Six health systems and health information exchanges havereceived grants from the Office of the National Coordinator of HealthInformation Technology (ONCHIT) for participation in the development ofa nationwide health information network (NHIN).

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published itssemi-annual regulatory agenda, identifying 62 actions it intends totake across the department, in the final year of President George W.Bush’s administration.

The connection shared by federal agencies to the Nationwide HealthInformation Network will be open, flexible and extensible,possibly making the network useful to organizations outside the federalgovernment in the future, according to Federal Health Architectureofficials.