The Direct Project: Accelerating Government Innovation in Health IT

[Commentary] In February 2011, two pilots of a new standard for sending health information securely over the Internet were launched. The pilots -- one in Minnesota and one in Rhode Island -- are the first tests of the Direct Project, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) initiative designed to simplify the exchange of information within the health care industry. The most noteworthy aspect of this initiative is how quickly it happened. These initial pilots are taking place less than a year after the Direct Project was started. The project represents an unusual experiment in accelerating the creation of the Nationwide Health Information Network. The project has demonstrated how rapidly a "lightweight" open process can yield useful results compared with typical government-sponsored IT development projects.