On May 12, 2008, the New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH) and the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) hosted a kickoff meeting for the HEAL 5 health IT [0] grant awards project. At the meeting NYS DOH and NYeC presented details of the "Statewide Collaboration Process" (SCP), which will be a multi-stakeholder effort to develop policies, technical standards, and operational guidance for health IT and HIE [0] projects. During breakout sessions the missions and activities for each of the SCP workgroups were reviewed. Workgroups include (1) Protocols and Services, (2) Clinical Priorities, (3) Privacy and Security and (4) EHR [0] Collaborative.

Plenary Session Presentations:

• Overview of New York’s Health IT Strategy and HEAL 5 Implementation Plan [1] – Lori Evans; NYS DOH
• Overview of New York eHealth Collaborative and the Statewide Collaboration Process Workgroup Structure [2] – Rachel Block, NYeC
• Overview of Health Information Technology Evaluation Collaborative and HEAL 5 Evaluation Process [3] – Rainu Kaushal, HITEC
• Overview of Consumer Engagement Activities [4] – Katie O’Neill, Legal Action Center; Lygeia Riccardi, Clear Voice Consulting

Workgroup Breakout Session Presentations:

• Clinical Priorities [5] – Patricia Hale, PhD, MD, FACP, NYS DOH
• Protocols and Services [6] - Tim Andrews, High Pine Associates; Lee Jones, GSI Health
• Privacy and Security [7] – Ellen Flink, NYS DOH; Tom Check, Visiting Nurse Service of NY; Lisa Santelli, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield
• EHR Collaborative [8] – Steve Smith, NYS DOH; Micky Tripathi, Mass. eHealth Collaborative