Scott Tiazkun, an analyst at IDC, said the challenges of the new U.K. system mirror the massive integration requirements for the U.S. national health information network proposed by the Bush administration. That system is intended to allow health care providers easily share patient data.

"The technology around middleware and tools that will be able to provide the links between all these disparate data sources will be crucial in making local databases be able to talk to regional databases," Tiazkun said.