WASHINGTON--As the cost of providing health care continues to rise, a group of five major American companies is funding development of an Internet-based network that will store the lifelong electronic health records of more than 2.5 million people starting next year.

The group, including Applied Materials, BP America, Intel, Pitney Bowes and Wal-Mart, said Wednesday that the "Dossia" system will collect the personal health information of the companies' employees and their dependants and keep it in secured databases.

With the system, individuals will be able to organize and summarize their health information. Their records will span a lifetime and will move with them if they change employers, health plans or doctors. The records will be accessible only by the individual or with their permission.

A non-profit is developing the system, which is based on the Connecting for Health Common Framework, a set of design and policy standards established by a collaboration of health industry stakeholders and funded by the Markle and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations.

Citing employers' increasing health care costs as a threat to the country's competitiveness, the companies said that, as the biggest buyers of health care, they "can and should play a role in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system." Dossia is intended to get rid of redundancy and errors, and contribute to the overall efficiency of the nation's health care system.

HHS has called on companies to support electronic health records, calling them "key to reforming health care in America," and has created several health information technology pilot programs. In 2004, President Bush set a goal for the majority of Americans to have EHRs by 2014.