Global Information Health Networks Get a Boost

IBM and about 20 organizations, including the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced the Global Pandemic Initiative in May 2006. IBM pledged to contribute several pieces of its health care technology portfolio to the open source community to help launch the initiative´s work. However, progress toward electronic health records and networks that could support population-based applications is moving slowly among national government agencies, especially in the US.