The chronic care project will be designed to support the widespread use of secure messaging to foster better communication between patients and health care providers, she added.

Finally, the consumer empowerment project will support the formation of electronic registries that would allow consumers to access summaries of their own health care data.

The ONC on March 7 will announce more details about the projects, which will then begin in the summer or fall.

"We expect to have real projects in the field in the later part of the year," Cronin said.

Cronin also noted that the ONC has restructured itself, creating four new divisions: the Office of Health IT Adoption, the Office of Interoperability and Standards, the Office of Programs and Coordination and the Office of Policy and Research. The ONC was created by President Bush in May 2004 to carry out the mandate for all Americans to have an EHR within 10 years,