The American Health Information Community (AHIC) was a federal advisory body, chartered in 2005 to make recommendations to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on how to accelerate the development and adoption of health information technology. AHIC was formed by then-Secretary Leavitt to help advance efforts to achieve President Bush’s goal for most Americans to have access to secure electronic health records by 2014.

From its inauguration in 2005 to its conclusion in November 2008, the AHIC advanced more than 200 recommendations over the course of 25 meetings either in Washington, DC, or other locations. The recommendations typically addressed a wide variety of enablers and barriers, such as:

• Standards and certification – for priority areas or “use cases”
• Business case – includes public and private sector reimbursement policy
• Business processes – necessary to integrate health IT into health care or consumer management of health
• Social and cultural issues – includes public awareness and consumer engagement
• Privacy and security – includes a long list of complex inter-related issues
• Medical-legal issues – includes liability and licensure of clinicians
• The AHIC recommendations to the HHS focused on both consumer/patient needs and population health needs as well as on the technology/interoperability necessary to advance the use of health information technology (health IT).

The AHIC successfully concluded its operations at the final meeting on November 12, 2008. According to the Secretary’s original intent, the AHIC was transitioned from a Federal Advisory Committee to a private-public organization, the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC). The NeHC intends to work cooperatively and aggressively in the months ahead to accelerate progress on a number of initiatives critical to the achievement of a secure, nationwide electronic health information network.
 

AHIC had 18 members including then-Secretary Leavitt, who served as chair. The remaining 17 members were public and private sectors leaders who represented a broad spectrum of health care stakeholders committed to the advancement of health IT.

Members:

• Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services, AHIC Chair
• Scott P. Serota, President and CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
• Douglas E. Henley, M.D., Executive Vice President, American Academy of Family Physicians
• Lillee Smith Gelinas, R.N., Chief Nursing Officer, VHA Inc.
• Charles N. Kahn III, President, Federation of American Hospitals
• Nancy Davenport-Ennis, CEO, National Patient Advocate Foundation
• Kevin D. Hutchinson, CEO, Prematics, Inc.
• Craig R. Barrett, Ph.D., Chairman, Intel Corporation
• E. Mitchell Roob, Secretary, Indiana Family and Social Services Administration
• Kerry Weems, (Acting) Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
• Julie Louise Gerberding, M.D., Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Gail L. Graham, Director, Health Data and Informatics, Veterans Health Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs
• S. Ward Casscells, M.D., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs
• Linda M. Springer, Director, Office of Personnel Management
• Cita Furlani, Director of the Information Technology Laboratory, US Department of Commerce
• Linda Dillman, Executive Vice President, Risk Management and Benefits, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
• John Glaser, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Partners Healthcare System, Inc.
• John Tooker, M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.P., Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer, American College of Physicians

• Meeting materials from AHIC meetings are now archived.  Access the Health IT Archive.
   
• Additionally, all meetings are available via VideoCast.  To view a listing of the AHIC VideoCasts, please visit: http://www.videocast.nih.gov/PastEvents.asp?c=70.