January 2005

 Mission:  to transform the health care system through information and technology to improve patient safety and health care quality, lower costs, and coordinate care.

IN THIS ISSUE:

1.  Leavitt Senate Confirmation Hearings Summary

 

2.  HHS Request for Information Draws Over 500 Responses - More Still Coming

 

3.  President Again Promotes HIT in Speech

 

4.  Senate Requests NHIN Details from Administration

 

5.  Senate Majority Leader Discusses Healthcare Technology

 

6.  Caucus Co-Chair Addresses Future of Health Care IT

 

7.  MedPAC discusses strategies to accelerate adoption of information technology

 

8.  Commission on Systematic Interoperability holds its inaugural meeting

 

9.  HHS releases report on promoting medical innovation

 

10.  Health care spending growth slows

 

11.  IHI's Promising Practice of the Month: Medication Reconciliation Helps Avoid Medical Errors

 

1.  Leavitt Senate Confirmation Hearings Summary
Both the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held confirmation hearings during the week of January 18-19 on President Bush's nomination of EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt to replace Tommy Thompson as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Senate HELP Committee hearing was a courtesy hearing to educate members on Leavitt's priorities. The Senate Finance Committee has oversight over the Leavitt confirmation and postponed a vote on his nomination due to lack of a quorum. Ranking Member Max Baucus (D-MT) told Leavitt to really look hard at the IT budget and to invest to save overall healthcare costs. Senator Baucus also said our nation can't wait ten years to solve the problems.  Leavitt stated that this was one of his prime interests in transforming the healthcare system.  Baucus said we must reimburse on quality outcomes.   Leavitt mentioned during the hearings that IT must be used to improve healthcare.   Senator Wyden (D-OR) and Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) asked Leavitt specifically about funding the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Leavitt said he has already met with Dr. Brailer and supports his efforts. Crapo also highlighted the Senate's Telehealth Caucus. Once the Finance Committee approves the nomination early next week as is expected, it will be sent to the full Senate for final approval. After final Senate approval is voted upon, the President can formally swear former Governor Leavitt into his new position in early February.

2.  HHS Request for Information Draws Over 500 Responses - More Still Coming

Via electronic submission, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) received more than 500 responses to its Request for Information (RFI) on the development of a National Health Information Network (NHIN).  And, these are just the electronic submissions.  Submissions sent via the postal service, though they had to have been postmarked by January 18, have 10 days in which to be received by ONCHIT.  A 13-member Collaborative response of major industry non-profits was one of the responses.  The collaborative noted that the new information environment must facilitate extensive connectivity among healthcare organizations and the community; provide timely access to information; empower patients to access their own information and contribute to the quality of care provided; support the application of intelligent tools to improve health and healthcare; facilitate the aggregation of data for public health, research, and quality assessment; and enable better physician and organizational performance. 

 

3.  President Again Promotes HIT in Speech

Applying information technology to the health care industry is one method of addressing rising medical costs, President Bush said in a speech on January 5 in Collinsville, Illinois, before more than 1,000 physicians and business leaders.  In his comments, Bush supported the use of electronic medical records and said that some "major" cost increases in the U.S. health care system are "necessary and worthwhile." Bush said, "World-class medical technology is expensive. In other words, to stay on the leading edge of medicine, it costs money. And I suspect somebody whose life has been saved by the latest technology is going to say that cost increase was necessary."

 

4.  Senate Requests NHIN Details from Administration

Four Senate committee leaders have urged the Bush administration to include "sufficient funding" for health care information technology in its fiscal 2006 budget proposal.  Sens. Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate HELP and Finance Committees, said in a letter that the use of IT would be the most effective way to reduce costs and improve patient care. The letter called for the administration to propose a "complete plan" for health care IT, which should address the role of government funding; opportunities for public-private partnerships; encouragement of physician IT use; and assurance of privacy and security concerns.  A copy of the letter is attached to this newsletter.

 

5.  Senate Majority Leader Discusses Healthcare Technology

In an article in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist explores the future of information technology and its potential to improve the health care system.  "The health care sector invests dramatically less - some 50% less - in information technology than any other major sector of our economy," Frist writes. According to Frist, universal electronic health records are imperative in a modern health care system and will help reduce errors, lower costs and improve quality and efficiency. Incentives should be used to drive EHR adoption among providers with the help of federal programs such as Medicare and private payers, Frist writes. According to Frist, EHRs must:

Frist writes that health care in the 21st century must be patient-centered, consumer-driven and provider-friendly. The government's role in the health care system will be to establish roles and arrange incentives to ensure that the new system works, Frist writes. "[W]e now have a unique opportunity to use information technology to create a health care marketplace that will in turn produce the transformed 21st century health care system we must have."  (Frist, New England Journal of Medicine, 1/20).

 

6.  Caucus Co-Chair Addresses Future of Health Care IT

In HHN Most Wired magazine, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Caucus Co-Chair, wrote an article "Moving to 'How': Creating the Future of Health Care IT," in which he said that systemic problems in American health care require systemic solutions. Building regional IT infrastructure organizations is the first step to the creation of a nationwide health information exchange. 

7.  MedPAC Discusses Strategies to Accelerate Adoption of IT
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission that advises Congress on payment issues relating to Medicare, passed several recommendations relating to quality and healthcare IT at its January 12 meeting in Washington D.C. This was the commission's final discussion before its March report of pay for performance and IT.  MedPAC found that IT has considerable potential to improve quality as well as the government's ability to measure it. One key MedPAC recommendation to Congress is that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should be directed to include measures of functions supported by the use of IT in Medicare initiatives to financially reward providers on the basis of quality. The entire 355-page hearing transcript can be found at http://www.medpac.gov .

8.  Commission on Systematic Interoperability Holds Inaugural Meeting
The Commission on Systematic Interoperability was authorized by Congress as part of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and charged with developing a strategic plan for the nation's healthcare IT infrastructure no later than October 31, 2005. The Commission held its inaugural meeting on January 10, chaired by Scott Wallace, president and chief executive officer of The National Alliance for Health Information Technology. The commission intends to establish a timeline and priorities for offering technology tools to improve healthcare safety, quality and efficiency and plans to meet in person on a monthly basis.  C. Martin Harris, CIO of the Cleveland Clinic and HIMSS' Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) Task Force Chair, is serving as a commissioner. During this initial meeting, the Commission heard from Dr. David Brailer, Dr. Mark Leavitt, and Dr. Barry Blumenfeld. 

 

9.  HHS Releases Report on Promoting Medical Innovation

The Department of Health and Human Services has released "Moving Medical Innovations Forward -- New Initiatives from HHS."  The report was created by an HHS taskforce that was formed to weigh new ideas and promote new solutions to encourage innovation in health care and to speed the development of effective new medical technologies.  Among the recommendations in the report were supporting the ongoing development of standard formats for electronic clinical trial data and improved collaboration between CMS and FDA. 

 

10.  Health Care Spending Growth Slows
The pace of health spending growth slowed in 2003, marking the first deceleration in national health spending growth in seven years, a report by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary shows.  Health expenditures in the United States grew 7.7 percent in 2003 to $1.7 trillion, down from a 9.3 percent growth rate in 2002.  On a per capita basis, health spending increased by $353 to $5,670.  Health spending accounted for 15.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2003, outpacing growth in the overall economy by nearly 3 percentage points. 

 

11.  IHI's Promising Practice of the Month: Medication Reconciliation Helps Avoid Medical Errors

Forty-six percent of all medications errors occur at transition points, many due to wrong or incomplete information about the medications the patient is taking.  Now, a growing number of hospitals see this confusion and information gap as a systems failure that health care providers - not patients - have the responsibility to fix.  This is the impetus behind the concept of the "medication reconciliation" process.  Read more: http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Topics/PatientSafety/MedicationSystems/ImprovementStories/ReconcilingMedicationsToAvoidMedicalErrors.htm

 

 

 

The House 21st Century Health Care Caucus thanks the following organizations for their contributions to this newsletter:

HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) is the healthcare industry's membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology and management systems for the betterment of human health.  HIMSS frames and leads healthcare public policy and industry practices through its advocacy, educational and professional development initiatives designed to promote information and management systems' contributions to ensuring quality patient care.  On the web at www.himss.org. (Items 1-10)

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a not-for-profit organization leading the improvement of health care throughout the world.  Founded in 1991 and based in Boston, MA, IHI is a catalyst for change, cultivating innovative concepts for improving patient care and implementing programs for putting those ideas into action.  Thousands of health care providers participate in IHI's groundbreaking work. To find out more, go to www.ihi.org. (Item 11)