HHS, ONC Announce New Health IT Initiative - June 14, 2011

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology (IT) on June 8 introduced a new initiative to encourage innovation in health IT. The Investing in Innovation (i2) initiative is supported by funds under the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. The program will focus on the use of prizes and challenges to develop innovative solutions to challenges in health IT. Examples of innovations that could be developed through i2 include applications to allow sharing of health information within a person’s social network, applications that allow individuals to better connect to each other during natural or other mass disasters, and other items that would help encourage the exchange of health information while preserving the privacy of personal data. As part of the i2 launch, ONC and HHS announced the first two awardees: Capital Consulting Corporation and Health 2.0 LLC, which will fund projects supporting research innovations and health IT development.