Health information technology may not in itself be the total solution to the nation’s health care problems, but it would serve as an enabling infrastructure for all the reforms being discussed in policy circles, witnesses told the Senate Budget Committee at a hearing today.
Reform initiatives such as medical homes, pay for performance, quality measurement and universal coverage all would need health IT as a foundation for their implementation, said Laura Adams, president and chief executive officer at the Rhode Island Quality Institute, which is building a statewide health information exchange.
“None of these [health reform proposals] can succeed without a constant flow of reliable and timely clinical and administrative information – the kind that is only produced electronically,” Adams said. “Therefore, it would be a mistake to regard health IT as merely one idea in a sea of good ideas for reform.”
Mary Grealy, president of the Healthcare Leadership Council, agreed. “You cannot have optimal health care reform without the benefits of health IT.”
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the committee chair, said the nation faces a debt crisis, and growing health care costs must be reined in. “This is not just an issue of federal health spending and its impact on the federal budget,” he said. “We can see it in the private sector as well.”
Conrad listed health IT as one of several reforms with the potential to curb costs. “I think we should also acknowledge, if we are going to be honest with ourselves, that some of these reforms will have upfront cost. And we don’t know yet how much they will ultimately save,” he said. “But if we are going to address rising health care costs, we need to get started on some of these reforms.”
At the hearing, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) referred to the Wired for Health Care Quality Act, which has been awaiting action by the full Senate since June 2007, saying, “This bill is about to pass, hopefully. I understand there are two holds left on it.”
Valerie Melvin, director of human capital and management information systems issues at the Government Accountability Office, also testified. She told the committee, as she has said in the past, that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT needs to develop an overarching strategy to guide its work. She said ONC plans to issue such a plan in the second quarter of 2008.
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.
