Direct Gathers Steam

Recently, the AAFP and Surescripts announced Physicians Direct, a secure messaging service for providers.  But neither the article nor the signup page for Physicians Direct detail the most critical single issue regarding the service. This is a very large deployment of the Direct Project. This is by far the most important part of the story, but it is buried deep with the FAQs.

That means that the service is compatible with other large adopters of the Direct Protocol. Most notably, HealthVault has just launched a beta deployment of Direct.

Think of the implications of this. One of the largest PHR providers in the country is on the network, one of the largest network of doctors is on this network. We are watching the birth of the Health Internet.