Secure messaging for everyone?

HIE has it on good authority that the feds are looking at a particularly attractive combination of technologies to enable all sorts of users, from sophisticated gear heads with fancy EMR installations to solo docs with just a web browser, to exchange secure messages across platforms. This would be a substantial step forward for both one-at-a-time patient coordination across practices and for automatic messaging to provide decision support and other intelligence. It will need an interface that is really, really simple for the basic user (not much different than a standard e-mail program), flexible hooks to allow interfacing with EMRs and registries, AND highly secure transmission across firewalls. If it meets all these criteria, NHIN Direct will be a winner.