This report from the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) outlines a vision and a process for mobilizing the human, institutional, and technological factors needed to support health decisionmaking through a National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII). NCVHS, a public advisory committee, is statutorily authorized to advise the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) on national health information policy. It reports annually to Congress on progress toward privacy protection and administrative simplification. The events following September 11, 2001, are irrefutable evidence of the need to be alert to health information from all sources, as soon as it emerges. These events only strengthen the Committee’s belief that the United States urgently needs.
