In his keynote address at the Health Information and Management Systems Society's annual conference in San Diego Monday, David Brailer, national coordinator for health information technology, said his office this year will be focusing its efforts on formulating guidelines and minimum standards designed to help regional health information organizations (RHIO) form and grow.

Brailer said his office will be detailing within a month a new contract designed to take stock of existing RHIO efforts. It will focus on mapping out how these evolving groups will fit into the government's plan to help foster a national infrastructure to support the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHR). The effort will help ensure that in states where there is more than one RHIO, an overarching statewide entity will be formed to help local groups deal with governance, financial and operational challenges, he added.

"We want RHIOs to know where we are heading so they can make their plans accordingly," he said. "If we have RHIOs governing themselves locally, there needs to be something that ties them together."

John Blair is president of Taconic IPA Inc., a physician practice organization that started a RHIO called the Taconic Health Information Network and Community (THINC) in the Hudson Valley region of New York. He welcomed Brailer's comments, noting that many RHIOs in other communities are struggling.

"This just shows that the federal government is serious about this, that they will help those fledgling organizations," he said.