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The Department of Health and Human Services in April released for general availability open source software developed for the government to aid in connecting to a national health information network. Now, a conference in late June will explain the software, called CONNECT.

The Federal Health Architecture Program Management Office in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology will sponsor the First Annual CONNECT Seminar. It is scheduled for June 29-30 in Washington.

The CONNECT application enables federal agencies and private sector provider organizations to exchange electronic patient information. Federal participants in demonstration programs last year included the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, Indian Health Service, Social Security Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Cancer Institute. Harris Corp. developed the software along with Agilex Technologies, Sun Microsystems and Scenpro Inc.

The agenda and free registration is available at connectopensource.org.

--Joseph Goedert