2011 Congressional "Asks" for HIMSS 10th Annual Policy Summit Revealed

HIMSS has approved the recommendations of the Asks Task Force and the Public Policy Committee for the three priorities that participants in HIMSS’ 10th Annual Policy Summit will bring to Capitol Hill when they meet in Washington next month.  The 2011 Asks are:

• In order to improve the quality of your constituents’ healthcare while also reducing its costs, such as through elimination of duplicative care, Congress should continue its strong bipartisan support for Health Information Technology. Read more
• Congress should preserve the investment being made in the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records Meaningful Use Incentive Program as an essential tool that is critical to the healthcare transformation process. Read more
• In order to ensure that your constituent is the right person getting the right healthcare at the right time, Congress should support the development of a nationwide patient identity solution by lifting the current statutory prohibition to allow HHS to address this issue along with other health IT policy enhancements. Read more Slides

To add your voice, register today!  HIMSS staff is busy making appointments with Congressional offices for everyone who’s registered to date, and they’d love to schedule a meeting for you too!

HIMSS 10th Annual Policy Summit

Our nation stands on the threshold of dynamic improvements in healthcare. Great advances of health information technology (IT) and the possibility of a nationwide exchange of clinical information place true healthcare reform within national reach. Visionary attempts, including The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, have been made to move the nation toward impactful healthcare reform, but true reform is impossible without system-wide adoption of electronic health records and nationwide health information exchange.

Now more than ever, it’s important to become better educated on health IT policy and take action that can bring about change.  Across the nation, health IT stakeholders will participate in National Health IT Week, September 12-16, 2011. You have an opportunity to be directly involved by participating in HIMSS’s 10th Annual Policy Summit in Washington, DC, where you can:   

• Become educated on how Congress is addressing healthcare reform
• Learn health IT policy issues and priorities
• Develop effective communication strategies when meeting with legislators
• Engage with your Members of Congress on health IT policy
• Be part of the decision-making process and have a real impact

“One Voice, One Vision.”  With adequate knowledge and the right resources, we can work together to verbalize one voice with one vision: bettering our healthcare system through the use of health information technology.