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Washington, DC, October 18, 2007-Last week, the non-profit eHealth Initiative (eHI) released the eHealth Initiative Blueprint: Building Consensus for Common Action, which represents multi-stakeholder consensus on a shared vision and a set of principles, strategies and actions for improving health and healthcare through information and information technology (IT). Through a collaborative process led by eHI's multi-stakeholder leadership, development of the Blueprint involved nearly 200 organizations representing the many diverse stakeholders in healthcare, including clinicians, consumers, employers and healthcare purchasers, healthcare IT suppliers, health plans, hospitals and other providers, laboratories, the life sciences industry, pharmacies, public health agencies, and state and regional leaders. The eHI Blueprint is publicly available and can be accessed at www.ehealthinitiative.org/blueprint.

The release of the eHI Blueprint represents Phase I of a two-phase process, offering multi-stakeholder consensus on a first set of guiding principles, strategies and actions in five key areas: engaging consumers; transforming care delivery; improving population health; aligning financial and other incentives; and managing privacy, security, and confidentiality. Individuals representing diverse perspectives in healthcare were drawn from eHI's leadership to lead and facilitate the work of five multi-stakeholder committees who created the key components of the Blueprint. While agreement was reached on a broad set of issues in each of the areas noted above, the eHI Blueprint process also identified areas where more work is needed-including specific areas related to financing and policies for information sharing.

Over the next twelve months, as part of Phase II of the Blueprint process, eHI will widely disseminate the Blueprint, support its implementation, facilitate the sharing of related best practices, and gain even further input from additional stakeholders both at the national and local levels, so that the principles, strategies and actions can continue to be refined based on an even broader set of perspectives, as well as experiences in the field. In addition, eHI will encourage national dialogue to reach agreement on those areas for which there is not yet consensus, contributing significantly to the debate as it moves forward. Finally, eHI will track and publicly report on progress made on the Blueprint on an annual basis.

Source: eHealth Initiative