Some leaders of the health information technology movement are describing the current period as a timeout in the push for electronic health records and other elements of a paperless health care system.
“We are at a point where we have run out of adrenaline,” said Scott Wallace, president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance for Health IT. Speaking at the organization’s annual meeting in Washington, Wallace called for health IT advocates to focus their energy on a few areas in which policy and operational changes can make a difference.
“People are exhausted,” he said, and progress has stalled to some extent. For example, Wallace said, anyone looking for models of successful health IT systems is limited to a few pioneering networks. “As long as the only reference sites are big academic medical centers, we won’t get much farther,” he said.
However, he added, “the reality is that hospitals and doctors are adopting health IT.” Efforts of the past few years, such as initiatives to establish standards and certify software, are now bearing fruit, he said.
Others attending the alliance meeting said they agreed for the most part with Wallace’s assessment of the situation. They, too, said progress is occurring, but some of the enthusiasm has worn off.
“I wouldn’t confuse exhaustion with a slowdown,” said Kevin Hutchinson, president and CEO of the SureScripts e-prescribing network. He said more organizations and employers are recognizing the value of health IT and widening the circle of advocates.
Among other evidence of a change in the pace of health IT policy activity, House and Senate staff members said they expect health IT bills to be introduced in both chambers this year, but questioned whether the bills will become law before 2008.
“I would generally agree that health IT is one of many health care priorities that are sort of circling the airport and looking for a landing slot,” said Michael Zamore, policy adviser to Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.).
“There’s a lot of energy around this issue,” said David Kendall, director of the Health Priorities Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. “But what we’re missing is kind of the animating idea.” He said health IT could be getting bogged down in politics and a lack of vigorous discussion.
“The national debate is slipping away,” said Shannon Salmon, vice president for federal affairs at Johnson and Johnson Health Care Systems. “There is not the focus that there was at the end of last year” when a health IT bill came close to passing.
“In order to invigorate the debate,” she said, “there needs to be a national presidential candidate who will throw some weight and energy” behind the issue.
David Liss, vice president for government relations and strategic initiatives at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, said he found it encouraging that health care appears to be emerging as one of the hottest issues in the presidential campaign.
As for health IT, Liss said, “I think we need to slow down right now” and search out answers to some of the tough questions, such as how to pay for it.
From the battlefield to the home front: Managing medical data
Government Health IT presents Col. Claude Hines Jr., program manager for the Defense Health Information Management System, in this recent InSight eSeminar. Col. Hines discusses the health information technology and tactical challenges faced by the military medical community in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict. In doing so, he describes the current information technology solutions for transferring clinical data between battlefield care givers to health care personnel at military treatment facilities worldwide.
