title: AMIA advocates national health information system in fight against national health threats.
abstract: To protect public health and national safety, AMIA recommends that the federal government dedicate technologic resources and medical informatics expertise to create a national health information infrastructure (NHII). An NHII provides the underlying information utility that connects local health providers and health officials through high-speed networks to national data systems necessary to detect and track global threats to public health. AMIA strongly recommends the accelerated development and wide-scale deployment of electronic public health surveillance systems, computer-based patient records, and disaster-response information technologies. Such efforts hold the greatest potential to protect our citizens from disaster and to deliver the best health care if disaster strikes.
authors.affiliation: Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Palo Alto, California 94301, USA. tang@smi.stanford.edu
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Tang
mesh_terms: D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D016134:Organizational Policy; D010355:Patient Identification Systems; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012955:Societies, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration; D014481:United States