The National Alliance for Health Information Technology is a diverse partnership of senior executives from all healthcare sectors working to advance the adoption of clinical information technology systems to achieve measurable improvements in patient safety, quality of care and operating performance. The Alliance collaborates with healthcare and government leaders to influence healthcare decision-makers to act effectively in creating an efficient, safe, unified and inclusive healthcare system. Since its founding in 2002, the Chicago-based Alliance has helped forge consensus and accelerate progress on such important initiatives as developing an industry-endorsed interoperability definition, creating a public directory of health IT standards and authored Rules of Engagement: A proven path for instilling, and then installing a CPOE approach that works.

The Alliance is co-founder of the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) and chaired the Commission on Systemic Interoperability. More information about the Alliance is available at www.nahit.org.


Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven, Inc. is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited standards developing organization dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information that supports clinical practice and the management, delivery and evaluation of health services. HL7's more than 2,300 members represent approximately 500 corporate members, including 90 percent of the largest information systems vendors serving healthcare. HL7 international affiliates have also been established in more than 25 countries throughout the globe. For more information, visit http://www.hl7.org.

The mission of the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) is to serve as a cooperative partnership between the public and private sectors for the purpose of achieving a widely accepted and useful set of standards specifically to enable and support widespread interoperability among healthcare software applications, as they will interact in a local, regional and national health information network for the United States. The Panel is sponsored by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in cooperation with strategic partners such as the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) and Booz Allen Hamilton. For more information, visit http://www.ansi.org/hitsp.

Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) with headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and Erlangen, Germany, is one of the largest suppliers to the healthcare industry in the world. The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies, healthcare information systems, management consulting, and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes. Employing approximately 33,000 people worldwide and operating in more than 120 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported sales of 7.6 billion EUR, orders of 8.6 billion EUR and group profit of 976 million EUR for fiscal 2005. More information can be obtained by visiting www.usa.siemens.com/medical-pressroom.

Back to HCB News

More Voices