The Health Technology Center Announces Grants From Major California Health Care Organizations To Launch CalRHIO

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 2005-- Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente, WellPoint Foundation, California HealthCare Foundation and Others Fund Development of Regional Health Information Organizations The Health Technology Center (HealthTech) announced today that several large California health care organizations will fund CalRHIO (www.calrhio.org), a collaborative statewide initiative to develop secure data exchange systems that will enable providers and patients to electronically access vital health care information when and where it is needed. "Every day in California, patients seeking care and thousands of providers are frustrated by health information in stacks of paper files or locked up in computer systems that can't talk to each other," said Molly Coye, CEO of HealthTech, which is managing CalRHIO. "Building a statewide system for exchanging healthcare data, and ensuring that all patients have electronic health records, is work we must do for Californians."