The paper introduces the background and objective of the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Project(SHARP) in America, analyzes the major research contents of its four sub-projects, namely, the security of health information technology, patient-centered cognitive support, healthcare and medical application and network platform architecture, as well as the secondary use of Electronic Health Records(EHR) data. On the basis of the actual situation of domestic health informatization, it gives advices from the aspects like state guidance, strengthening coordination and cooperation, building standardized information models and giving importance to information security,etc.