Emerging as a pilot project from Connecting for Health, the Healthcare Collaborative Network (HCN) will demonstrate both the feasibility and the value of a standards-based, interconnected, electronic model of data interchange to a wide variety of stakeholders, including practicing clinicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers, public health agencies, researchers and ultimately, patients. 

The HCN will demonstrate how electronic communications using common standards can help patients receive necessary and timely medical treatment and guard against medical errors, incorrect prescriptions, and adverse drug events.  Through this network, public health agencies will receive information needed to identify and respond to public health care threats that range from naturally occurring diseases - such as SARS - to deliberate bioterror attacks.

Guided by IBM, the HCN includes a growing consortium of public and private sector organizations including hospitals and health systems such as New York Presbyterian, Vanderbilt Medical Center, Wishard Memorial Hospital, University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, MedStar Health; federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Food and Drug Administration; and leading healthcare information technology suppliers, such as ESRI.