Today the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released a report subsequent to a webcast describing the work of this council. This report is entitled:  Health Information Technology: The Way Forward.

What was so striking about the webcast, was that two of the seven very distinguished guests:

• Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary, Dept. of Health and Human Services
  Lawrence Summers, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and
•                                        Director, National Economic Council
  David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information
•                                        Technology
  Eric Lander and Christine Cassel, President’s Council of Advisors on
•                                        Science and Technology
• Two Business/Industry Representatives from Kaiser Permanente and AT&T who provide Dossia PHR to their 1 million+ employers

 …..gave personal stories of the successes and failures of our health system related to health IT—one of a mistaken delivery of lab results from difficulty reading a hand-written report  and one of a very rapid delivery of health care information based upon the availability of electronic records.

This report is a follow up to determine what else needs to be done since the HITECH Act was passed in February 2009.  This report will be published by the Federal Register and be open to public comment from ONC for 30 days.

 A second report released today from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation entitled: Health Information Technology in the United States: Moving Towards Meaningful Use.

I guess the unseen benefit of our cold, very windy days in the Washington DC Metro area is that the prospect of reading next to a blazing fire in the fireplace.