HIMSS News
Health IT Recommendations Issued to New Administration and 111th Congress
On December 17, HIMSS issued a report: Call for Action: Enabling Healthcare Reform Using Information Technology – Recommendations for the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress. The full report and letters to President-elect Barack Obama and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary-Designate Tom Daschle are available online. The Society also delivered letters to Congressional Committee chairmen and ranking members with jurisdiction over healthcare.
The Call for Action was developed by HIMSS’ Healthcare Transformation through Health IT (HTHIT) Workgroup. Chaired by members Maggie Lohnes, RN (Chair, HIMSS Advocacy & Public Policy Steering Committee) and Harry Greenspun, MD (Chair, HIMSS Government Relations Roundtable), the Workgroup consisted of more than 100 volunteers including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, hospital and clinical practice leaders, consumers, IT specialists, consultants, lawyers, payors, vendors, and representatives from state-level health information exchange organizations, and the federal government.
To ensure that health IT is appropriately addressed in anticipated healthcare reform policy in 2009, HIMSS workgroup developed unified recommendations for the new Congress and Administration concerning the role of health IT in healthcare reform. The recommendations represent necessary measures to develop and sustain a robust IT infrastructure for healthcare.
HIMSS believes the priority recommendations can help reform healthcare and stimulate the U.S. economy, and should be implemented within the first 120 days of the Obama Administration. First, HIMSS recommends the Administration and Congress invest a minimum of $25 billion dollars on health IT. This funding should:
- Mandate electronic medical record adoption,
- Provide electronic medical records for children, and
- Establish health IT Empowerment Zones.
HIMSS’ second recommendation is to apply recognized standards and require certified health IT products among all federally funded health programs by mandating that any funding appropriated for the purchase or upgrade of new health IT products among providers and payors of federally funded health programs be allocated only for the use of health IT products that apply HITSP interoperability specifications and are CCHIT-certified.
Finally, within the first 120 days of the Administration, HIMSS recommends that President-elect Obama convene a White House Summit on Healthcare Reform through Information Technology to develop consensus and propose solutions to critical national health IT issues within the context of the larger national healthcare reform effort.
Other recommendations are comprehensive and encompass issues of leadership, interoperability, privacy and security, electronic payment, consumer empowerment, funding and quality. HIMSS urges policymakers to consider the recommendations as components of the necessary foundation to strengthen and sustain the success of their healthcare reform legislation, proposals, and regulation policies.
