COLUMBUS — — Gov. Ted Strickland on Monday created a state advisory board aimed at reducing the growth in health care costs partly by improving the exchange of health information between providers and patients.

R. Steve Edmondson, the state's chief information officer, will lead the Health Information Partnership Advisory Board, created by Strickland's 30th executive order.

Strickland will appoint a co-chair. Two members each will come from the House and Senate. Other members will be appointed as needed, according to the order.

Controlling health care costs is important to better managing state expenditures and to enhancing the state's economic environment, according to the order.

The board's mission is to bring together representatives from the public and private sectors to work on health information technology issues and to coordinate that work with the Ohio Broadband Council.

Members will serve without pay and the board will go out of business on Dec. 31, 2008, unless the order is extended.

House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, agrees in concept with Democrat Strickland on health care issues such as this one, as long as policies don't lead to a "one-size-fits-all" government-run universal health care system, said Karen Tabor, Husted's spokeswoman.