The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) — which in fall 2009 launched the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) Program, providing funding to four teams pursuing research to generate new knowledge and innovations enabling “the meaningful use of health IT and a high-performing, adaptive, nationwide health care system” — is out with an interesting video (after the jump) describing what advances in computing mean for the healthcare system of the future. The video, accompanied by a new web portal, HealthIT.gov, touches on some of the themes captured by the Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) October 2009 workshop on discovery and innovation in health IT.

Are you hearing that your health and medical records may become available online? Have you heard your doctor talk about electronic health records (EHRs), but aren’t sure what that means for you? This is all part of health IT. Watch this three-minute video to find out how health IT — including EHRs — can help provide a complete and secure picture of your medical records. Learn about the future of health IT and how you may be able to securely access your family’s medical records online, schedule doctor appointments online, review health test results online, and track chronic conditions with your doctor without having to make the trip to the doctor’s office…

For more, check out the CCC’s health IT webpage, including the report-out from the Oct. 2009 workshop.

And stay tuned — we’ll have more about computing and health in this space in the coming weeks!

(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director)