The Direct Project: Exchanging Health Information Over the Cloud

I found this site at IBM Developer about the Direct Project.  This is a cloud-based, open source, Java-based client that allows secure email to be sent in health IT systems.   The articles starts by stating,

"Cloud computing has been a game-changer in promoting system interoperability and reducing IT costs in almost every other industry, but it has been difficult to adopt the cloud computing paradigm for health IT. Today, health IT in the cloud is mostly limited to hosted electronic health record (EHR) providers for small practices such as eClinicalWorks and PracticeFusion (see Resources)   Such providers focus on hosting data and services (in the software-as-a-service or SaaS model), but not on data exchange. Large hospital systems have so far not adopted cloud computing in any meaningful way."

The article provides great technical and practical information about the history of Direct, how it works, and the challenges it faces.  There are also links to other resources.