The move is designed to increase the transparency of federal agencies that handle veterans' health care, Medicare and federal employee health care so patients can obtain information on quality measurements and the price of care, according to the order.

It requires the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Veterans Affairs to adhere to interoperability standards when acquiring or upgrading health IT systems that will be used to exchange health information between agencies and with other entities. Those standards will be set by HHS.

The agencies must also put in place programs to measure the quality of the services they provide to beneficiaries by aggregating claims data, according to the order. And they have been told that the health care providers and insurance plans they contract with also must adhere to the standards for their IT systems.

The agencies must comply with the executive order by Jan. 1.

"People deserve to know what their health care costs, how good it is and the choices available to them," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement. "The President's action today is a major step forward in giving consumers easy-to-use information about the quality and price of their health care."