President-elect Barack Obama's healthcare reform plan has gained the endorsement of healthcare CIOs around the country.
In a letter addressed to Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle, Rich Correll, president and CEO of The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), praised the plan's inclusion of electronic health record systems and other technologies to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery.
"These reforms and improvements to the healthcare IT system will affect patient safety, which is the ultimate goal," Correll said. "I'm pleased that the federal government is taking a serious interest in utilizing the tools of health information technology that will help doctors, nurses and other clinicians more effectively and efficiently do their jobs."
CHIME also put forth a few recommendations, among them funding a position for overseeing the coordination of health IT strategy across the federal government and developing tight security and privacy standards for data exchange.
CHIME, which advocates effective use of information management in healthcare, has a membership of 1,300 healthcare CIOs.
Correll said CHIME works collaboratively with other industry organizations, such as the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society and the American Hospital Association.
HIMSS recently published its own blueprint for healthcare reform, calling on the federal government to invest $25 billion in support of healthcare IT adoption and use.
In its Dec. 31 letter to Daschle, CHIME offered seven recommendations for developing the healthcare IT component of the reform plan:
1. Federal Leadership. Establish a senior level position in the administration to oversee a national health IT strategy to coordinate and oversee health IT initiatives across all agencies and departments of the federal government in coordination with similar efforts in the private sector.
2. Standards Policy. Authorize funds for a public-private sector body or set of bodies to advise, coordinate and facilitate health IT-related initiatives within and between the federal government and the private sector related to priority-setting, standards policy and standards harmonization. Build upon significant progress achieved through standards-related bodies, such as the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP).
3. Incentives. Authorize and appropriate the necessary funds to incentivize adoption of electronic health records (EHR) by hospitals and physician practices that receive federal funding, including Medicare, Medicaid, the VA and the DOD. Ensure that EHRs comply with accepted standards and certification criteria established by recognized standards-related and certification bodies, such as
HITSP and the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT).
4. National Infrastructure for Health IT. Support the development of a nationwide interoperable health IT infrastructure to include the identification and adoption of standards and policies, uniform and consistent use of the selected standards and policies and practices across national, state and local initiatives. While various bodies have addressed some of the transaction standards associated with health IT, government and industry collaboration is essential to ensure interoperability and uniformity.
5. Health IT Workforce. Provide grant awards to institutions of higher learning to educate and train the next generation of healthcare workers in healthcare information technology practices, including clinical decision support, health informatics and EHR implementation to improve the delivery and quality of care. For the incumbent health workforce, create grant awards for career training and development in the use of clinical decision support, EMR implementation and other HIT tools.
6. Underserved Populations. Address the health and healthcare needs of underserved populations through health IT, including improved access to telehealth networks by expanding the Federal Communications Commission's Rural Health Pilot Program to underserved urban and rural communities.
7. Privacy and Security. Support national action to achieve privacy standards as a means to address significant variation in legislation governing privacy between and among state and federal jurisdictions. Create standards by which data can be shared and adopt one set of clearly defined privacy standards.
