Joel White
Executive Director
Health IT Now!

The Health IT Now! Coalition marked its first anniversary earlier this month by applauding the House Energy and Commerce Committee for holding a hearing on health information technology.  The Coalition was formed to expedite legislation that would advance deployment of Health IT.  House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell’s legislation, along with the Kennedy-Enzi legislation in the Senate, meet the Coalition’s goals of fostering the use of health information technology to save lives, reduce medical expenses and digitize U.S. health care.

The Health IT Now! Coalition urges Congress to pass legislation that:

• Establishes standards for interoperability, product certification and quality measures.

• Provides financial incentives to purchase and use health IT.

• Provides patient education about electronic health.

• Ensures security and privacy.

As noted in a recent Washington Times column by former Representative Nancy Johnson (R-CT) and chairman of the Health IT Now! Coalition, only about 14 percent of doctors and large hospitals use electronic medical records, and most of those don’t have systems that can communicate with other caregivers. The result is incomplete patient records, poor quality care and more than 100,000 deaths annually due to medical errors.

“Medical technology is advancing rapidly,” Johnson wrote. “Medical communication is still a morass of paper files, Post-It notes, faxes and phone messages.”

Health IT also will save the nation $80 billion annually in health care costs, according to the Rand Corp.  Widespread adoption of health information technology, including electronic medical records, could reduce spending on health care by as much as 30 percent, the Department of Health and Human Services says. These represent significant savings for a nation that spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care.

Our coalition believes timely legislative action is critical, necessary and possible this year. 

Legislative action has won broad support from Governors who have implemented health IT and telemedicine policies.  In February, a bipartisan group of Governors called on Congress to quickly pass legislation establishing federal standards for interoperability of health systems.  Governor Chet Culver, Democrat of Iowa; Governor Jim Douglas, Republican of Vermont; and Governor Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, discussed growing state-level demand for health IT.  The Governors said progress in every state is limited because the federal government has yet to establish national standards to ensure seamless interoperability to advance patient care.

The coalition has also participated in a number of highly informative events to raise awareness of the benefits of Health IT.  Late last year, Nancy Johnson presented at a policy forum, Health IT: Why a dose of Health IT may be just what the doctor ordered.  The panel discussed the current state of health care and specifically the ways electronic health records can improve care.  In March, the Coalition participated in the governors’ press conference (watch NextGenWeb’s coverage of the event here).  We followed up with a congressional briefing in April (video here).

• Listen in to these comments as senators and CEOs urge Congress to pass a Health IT Bill, the Wired for Health Care Quality Act.

To sum up the comments from Governor Jim Douglas:  “Governors all across the country haven’t waited for Washington to act…but the work of governors won’t be enough if Washington, D.C., sits this one out.”

We can’t afford to sit this one out because time, money and literally lives will be lost.  It is time for Congress to act and take this giant leap forward for American health care in the digital age.  The Health IT Now! Coalition has brought this important issue front and center on the legislative calendar.  We’ve accomplished a great deal in our first year. Congratulations and thank you to the Coalition and its many partners.