Horan appointed to HHS Consumer Empowerment Group

Published on Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Thomas A. Horan, Ph.D., Director of the Kay Center for E-Health Research and Professor within the School of Information Systems and Technology at Claremont Graduate University was recently appointed to the Health Information Technology Consumer Empowerment Workgroup of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

At its November 29, 2005, meeting, the American Health Information Community (the Community) recommended the formation of a workgroup on consumer empowerment. The Community further recommended that this workgroup develop a plan to realize a specific charge (deployment of pre-populated electronic registrations and medication histories) within one year that is visible to the American public and that works towards a broader charge (widespread adoption of personal health records) over time. The meetings of this workgroup are public and meeting materials are available to the public.

Objectives assigned to this workgroup are to:

• Make recommendations to the Community to gain wide spread adoption of a personal health record that is easy-to-use, portable, longitudinal, affordable, and consumer-centered.
• Make recommendations to the Community so that within one year, a pre-populated, consumer-directed and secure electronic registration summary is available to targeted populations. Make additional recommendations to the Community so that within one year, a widely available pre-populated medication history linked to the registration summary is deployed.