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Allowing hospitals and doctors' offices to share patients' health records electronically will reduce medical costs and streamline the nation's healthcare system said Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) during a news conference to promote National Health IT Week on Tuesday.

"Information technology is the key to really addressing so many of the woes of our healthcare system [including] the fact that we have 100,000 medical errors every year that are due principally to the fact that we don't have the right information at the right time at the provider's fingertips at the point of delivery of care...As such, we're not able to take care of those people properly and...it results in more and more hospitalizations and unneeded duplication of care over and over again adding to the cost of our healthcare system."

Joining Kennedy at the news conference were fellow Reps. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.), Dennis Moore (D-Kan.), Michael Burgess (R-Texas), Tim Murphy (D-Pa.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), CIO for Brigham and Women's/Faulkner Hospitals Sue Schade and Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Board Chair Barry Chaiken, M.D.

Said Gingrey, an OB/GYN himself, "There is so much importance to health information technology...Although there are many things in the five bills on healthcare reform that have come through the House and the Senate where I take exception to, certainly the efforts in regard to health information technology and electronic medical records I am supportive of." Gingrey added that he has introduced bills in each of the last several sessions of Congress that would allow small medical practices to expense the cost of overhauling their system of records.

Under the current healthcare system in the U.S., patients' files are kept only in print form. Proponents of electronic record sharing argue that the paper system fails patients and doctors alike in cases of emergency or situations involving travel.

"Health IT brings the 18th century medical paper file system into 21st century medical care by providing crucial information in a secure and confidential manner in a matter of seconds," said Murphy.

Conversely, advocates of the current system believe that an electronically-based system would create privacy as well as cost concerns. However, Kennedy, who is Co-Chair of the 21st Century Health Care Caucus, argued that there is broad support nationwide for implementing health IT measures, noting that Congress allocated more than $20 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for such initiatives.