American Health Information Community

The American Health Information Community (AHIC) is a federal advisory body, chartered in 2005 to make recommendations to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on how to accelerate the development and adoption of health information technology. AHIC was formed by the Secretary to help advance efforts to achieve President Bush’s goal for most Americans to have access to secure electronic health records by 2014.

Plans are now underway to establish a successor to the AHIC as a public-private partnership based in the private sector by Fall 2008. The AHIC successor will be independent and sustainable and will bring together the best attributes and resources of public and private entities. This new public-private partnership will develop a unified approach to realize an effective, interoperable nationwide health information system that supports the health and well-being of the people of this country. For more information, please visit the AHIC Successor page.

Since its formation, the AHIC identified four initial areas with potential for early breakthroughs in the advancement of standards that will lead to interoperability. The AHIC organized four workgroups to pursue recommendations in these areas, and delivered their first set of recommendations to the Secretary in May of 2006. Three additional workgroups have since been formed to address a wider range of issues, and these workgroups are expected to deliver recommendations to the Secretary in 2007.

Learn more about:

• Breakthrough areas
• Workgroups
• Revised AHIC Charter - February 2008 (PDF - 36KB)