Reps From Both Sides Gather To Promote New Health IT Initiatives

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.

Kennedy moves to digitize medical records

On Wednesday Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Representative Tim Murphy (R-Pa) held a press conference to discuss the Health IT portions of the economic stimulus package. Health IT refers to the maintenance of Medical records electronically and the sharing of them over the internet in a uniform and connected way, as opposed to conventional paper methods of filing. Representative Kennedy said that Healthcare in America is going to undergo an “enormous transformation”, and that everyone has a stake in Health IT. He continued that Health IT would deliver efficiency to the system and would make it more user friendly. Representative Murphy said that the legislation would eliminate $162 billion in waste in current programs and $150 billion worth of lost work time. Stephen Lieber, President and CEO of of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), said that Health IT would be necessary to meet President Obama’s call to computerize health records in 5 years, and that Health IT is both good stimulus and good policy. Critics of the legislation cite privacy as a main concern, but Representative Murphy stated that HIPAA rules would apply to the documents contained in the system, which would protect the privacy of patients.

By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico - Talk Radio News Service