State Alliance for e-Health

Overview
The State Alliance for e-Health, initiated in late 2006, and established by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices through a contract with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is designed to advance state-level health IT decisions and approaches through the use of a collaborative body that brings together key state decision makers. The State Alliance is a consensus-based, executive-level body of state elected and appointed officials, formed to address the unique role that states can play in facilitating electronic health information exchange through the exploration of solutions to programmatic and legal issues.

In October 2008, the State Alliance released its first report to the states Accelerating Progress: Using Health Information Technology and Electronic Health Information Exchange to Improve Care. The report is meant to spur continued innovation in states to make the vision of an interconnected, efficient, quality-based health care system &mdash; and ultimately a healthier American public &mdash; a reality. The State Alliance specifically highlights e-prescribing and consumer privacy as critical to advancing e-Health in America and encourages states to be proactive in creating and implementing policies that advance these and other e-health initiatives.

Future State Alliance efforts will focus on privacy and security and assisting states in implementing select recommendations.