A collective of large providers that have been early adopters of electronic health records has established a joint effort to securely share electronic health information among their systems starting next year. Combined, the healthcare organizations treat patients from all 50 states. The Care Connectivity Consortium will deploy health IT tools over the next year to electronically share data about their patients, who will be able to choose whether they want their information be shared among the organizations. The providers will use electronic tools that are consistent with national health IT standards to foster interoperability among the group's systems, according to an announcement April 6.