In recent years, high quality health information has become valuable to many stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem. The access and aggregation of healthcare data poses philosophical including ethical, political, technical, and economic challenges. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) while solving some problems has created costs, concerns, and even the perception of barriers to the sharing of health data.

AMIA's Blue Ribbon Panel of experts on the Secondary Use of Health Data met on April 27-28, 2006. Materials gathered to inform participants are available here along with the final report. A full range of topics was covered. The topics are not new, but were given fresh consideration in light of renewed efforts to build the national health infrastructure for transforming health care into a system that is safe, equitable, efficient, effective, timely and patient-centered. The viewpoint of the framework was societal.