(HHS: Washington D.C.) -- As part of the efforts to design and establish a public-private partnership to succeed the American Health Information Community by fall 2008, HHS has issued the final white paper describing the vision for and attributes of a successor to the AHIC. The purpose of the AHIC is to serve as an HHS advisory body on the development and adoption of health information technology (IT). The successor will build on the AHIC achievements to realize the vision of an interoperable health care system."The AHIC work to date represents excellent progress in moving the national health IT agenda forward," Secretary Mike Leavitt says. "We have made major strides toward interoperability and the AHIC successor will be the vehicle to further advance standards creation and adoption in order to achieve nationwide interoperability. Interoperability is fundamental to the long-term success of health information exchange."

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