July 2004

Mission:  To examine issues and advocate for improvements in our health care delivery system to help foster a system that drives quality and efficiency in health care and develop an agenda to promote bipartisan solutions.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Welcome Dr. David Brailer

2004 NHII Conference

National Healthcare IT Budget

House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee Hearing

2004 Frontiers of Health Care Conference

New AHRQ Study Shows Health Care Team Members Often Disagree on What Constitutes a Medical Error

Welcome Dr. David Brailer.  So much has been happening since the launch of our new caucus.  In an Executive Order issued on April 27, 2004, President George W. Bush called for widespread deployment of health information technology within 10 years.  As part of this announcement, he formed the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) and selected Dr. David Brailer for this key position.  The Healthcare Community warmly welcomed Dr. Brailer's appointment as can be seen in the following article:  http://www.health-itworld.com/enews/05-11-2004_109.html. 

The President has made clear that Dr. Brailer's job is to "move the country toward the broad adoption of an interoperable infrastructure for most Americans within ten years." An important aspect of the President's initiative is the development of a nationwide interoperable health information technology infrastructure that can facilitate improvements in safety, quality, efficiency and care coordination.  Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has made enhancing the quality and safety of health care for all Americans through better use and wider application of information technology one of his most important priorities.

At the top on Dr. Brailer's action item list is the development of a strategic plan to reach the President's goal. Much of his time is spent helping government planners develop their understanding of the strategic planning process: gather information, analyze the issues, develop options and alternatives, and apply them to the end goal.  Dr. Brailer firmly believes that with the public and private sector working together, our nation can deliver a solution that provides for safer care, coverage for the uninsured, and the fusion of knowledge. He believes in healthcare reform from the inside out, not the outside in, placing the doctor-patient interaction at the center. The transformation is not about using IT; it is about using information. He sees information technology as equally fundamental to the delivery of care as clinical technology.  

The caucus hopes to host Dr. Brailer for a briefing in September on Capitol Hill.  Watch for details!

2004 NHII Conference.  One of Dr. Brailer's key initiatives in the July is sponsoring a special Summit on Health Information Technology (HIT) which will launch this year's National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII) conference:  Cornerstones for Electronic Healthcare.  The Summit will take place on Wednesday, July 21, 2003 from 8:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. at the Washington Convention Center and will feature Secretary Tommy G. Thompson as the opening keynote address as well as keynote speeches from The Honorable Bill Frist, M.D., United States Senate Majority Leader and The Honorable Chris Dodd, United States Senator, Connecticut.

At this conference, Dr. Brailer will be presenting a progress report on a strategic plan for the adoption of a national health information technology infrastructure called upon in the President's April 27, 2004 Executive Order.  This presentation will be followed by two reactor panels that will represent both the public and private sectors.  The public panel will include Congressional leaders and key Agency heads from the Federal Government.  The private panel will include a host of influential panelists from the business community and be moderated and introduced by John Chambers, President and CEO, Cisco Systems.

This event will build on the work initiated at last year's NHII conference and give the various individuals who volunteered to focus on particular issues at the Secretary's May 6th Summit an opportunity to meet and participate in formal work groups as well as provide feedback on a national action plan. This year's NHII Conference will commence directly after the HIT Summit and will include a variety of topic area workgroups.  The conference and the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) hearing that immediately follows are opportunities for all stakeholders to further contribute to an action plan that will lead to widespread implementation and adoption of information technology to improve the care for all Americans.

The conference takes place from July 21 - 23, 2004 at the Washington D.C. convention center.  All conference agenda and registration information is available online at www.hsrnet.net/nhii/. 

National Healthcare IT Budget.  The Department of Health and Human Services is compiling a budget for the government's fiscal year 2007.  "We're working on that right now. It's our No. 1 priority," said Dr. Brailer last week at the summer meeting of the National Alliance for Health Information Technology in Chicago.   A key number Dr. Brailer needs for budget consideration is the size of investment needed to jump-start implementation of clinical information systems among healthcare providers. As for estimates, Brailer's heard them all. "I've heard numbers from $10 billion to $100 billion," he said. "I need to get estimates down to a tighter band."  To do that, he expects to rely on existing or ongoing studies on incentives and return on IT investment, he said.  His office also is attempting to determine how much money the federal government spends on healthcare IT. While much of that spending is funneled through the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration, the office also has found IT appropriations in the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture and Homeland Security.

House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee Hearing.  On June 16, the House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee held a hearing focused on health information technology.  Witnesses at the hearing said that the federal government should continue to push standards efforts and find ways to offer incentives for using health-information technology. Though the testimony before the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee largely focused on stories of success, even those groups that had already committed to large investments said the government could do more to promote the technology.  Details can be found at:

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=detail&hearing=155&comm=1

2004 Frontiers of Health Care Conference.  On June 21, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich joined Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy at the 2004 Frontiers of Healthcare Conference at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, to reiterate their call for using information technology to save lives and reduce health care costs.  Gingrich said the federal government should fund individual electronic health records, beginning with the "Welcome to Medicare" physicals for new enrollees that the government starts in January. Gingrich also said the government could promote patient safety technology through its role as the largest health care payer. For more information, contact Michael Zamore at Michael.zamore@mail.house.gov.   See an article about this event at:

http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20040622_hc22.19a4ed.html.

New AHRQ Study Shows Health Care Team Members Often Disagree on What Constitutes a Medical Error. A new Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ)-funded study analyzing patient safety data from 29 small rural hospitals between 2001 and 2004 indicates that different members of health care teams--physicians, nurses, pharmacists, administrators-often disagree on what constitutes a medical error or which adverse events should be reported to patients. Researchers conclude that if providers are focused only on the errors with which they are familiar, such as medication errors, then opportunities for improving other aspects of patient safety are diminished. The study article, "An Error by Any Other Name," authored by Ann Freeman Cook, Ph.D., and Helena Hoas, Ph.D. at the National Rural Bioethics Project, University of Montana in Missoula, was published in the June 2004 issue of the American Journal of Nursing. Read the abstract at:

http://www.ajnonline.com/pt/re/ajn/abstract.00000446-200406000-00025.htm

###