October 25, 2005

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday calls for the U.S.
to "wire our entire health care infrastructure into an intelligent national
network."

Modernizing the health care system will require "two elusive ingredients:
more courageous leadership and a measure of societal collaboration that
transcends politics and preconceptions," writes Carol Kovac, general
manager of health care and life sciences for IBM.

Wiring the health care system also will require "unprecedented
collaboration" among all sectors of the health care industry, including
"federal and state government, all industries and all health care
providers," Kovac writes. The Technology CEO Council, an advocacy group
that includes Applied Materials, Dell, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel,
Motorola, NCR and Unisys -- this month released a plan to help guide the
process.

Kovac noted that IBM next year will provide personal health records for its
U.S. employees and said that "by committing to personal health records for
our employees now, the IT industry is aiming to build momentum for a more
rapid rollout of the kind of system we so desperately need." Also,
government agencies can "spur the adoption of open technology standards
that will be critical to progress," Kovac writes.

According to Kovac, using technology and innovation to transform the health
care industry "has become a matter of national security in both human and
economic terms" (Kovac, Wall Street Journal, 10/25).

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