It’s a pleasure to be here on behalf of Aetna and the industry. I’d like to place this in a broader context if I can. And, I think this really is a very important event, and it’s an event we will look back on with a fundamentally different perspective.

Imagine, if you will, that you were attending an event a number of years ago in which the financial services community had just announced that they had concluded the ATM transaction standards, which laid the foundation for any of us to go anywhere in the world and be able to access our financial data and actually withdraw money.

The event that we’re announcing today, and the standards and the level of collaboration, I believe is as important and may be more important than the standards that the financial community agreed upon that laid the foundation for the whole ATM network. Many of us often wonder, my driving record follows me from state to state – that may be for better or worse depending on your driving record – but our medical records don’t follow us from physician’s office to physician’s office, nor does the data that we want to access ourselves to try to answer the question, when was that tetanus shot that I got and do I really need another shot at this point in time?

So, I believe this is very important, and I think it represents a tremendous collaboration not just on the part of health plans but with physicians and with government. And, it really reflects the continuing maturity of our sector in the context of focusing on patient safety and what we can do to really help improve the health care status of Americans.

Now, I’ve talked a lot about what this is. I want to comment on this briefly, and then I want to apply the old adage that a picture truly is worth a thousand words. Early in the first quarter Aetna is going to launch our own personal health record. It’s powered by something we call the CareEngine System; it’s interactive, both with the individual and also in terms of working collaboratively with the physician community. It permits the Care Engine to access the best clinical practices and peer review literature to determine, as best we can, and notify the physician when there appears to be something that might be inconsistent with those best practices or peer review literature. It can inform the physician, and it can message the member.

It also gives a member the ability to add information that only they know, whether taking over-the-counter medications that may very well be in conflict with a particular condition or other medication. They can add information on their own personal health or family background and family history. I think it promotes, from our point of view, a fundamental step up in the collaborative relationship between the member and their physician with a focus on improving the quality of care.

Having talked about it, we will now give you a chance to see what one looks like (watch Aetna’s Personal Health Record Tour ).

I want to close by underscoring the tremendous opportunity, we believe, that this presents for individuals to take control of their personal health and to really work toward achieving optimal health in collaboration with their physicians. Thank you.