In The News

The Decade of Health Information Technology

Cornerstones for Electronic Healthcare (07/21/04)

The Institute of Medicine estimates that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors. Many more die or have permanent disability because of inappropriate treatments, mistreatments, or missed treatments in ambulatory settings. Studies have found that as much as $300 billion is spent each year on health care that does not improve patient outcomes treatment that is unnecessary, inappropriate, inefficient, or ineffective. All these problems high costs, uncertain value, medical errors, variable quality, administrative inefficiencies, and poor coordination are closely connected to our failure to use health information technology as an integral part of medical care.
--President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 20, 2004

To put his State of Union Address into action, President Bush is calling for a nationwide, interoperable, health information technology infrastructure that can facilitate improvements in safety, quality, efficiency, and care coordination. Furthermore, he has committed to widespread deployment of health information technology within the next 10 years. To facilitate these efforts, President Bush has installed a Health IT czar, appointing Dr. David Brailer as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

On July 21, The National Health Information Infrastructure Conference: Cornerstones for Electronic Healthcare was held in Washington, D.C. hosted by Dr. Brailer. This resulted in a national action plan enabling the National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII) to move forward to improve the effectiveness and overall quality of healthcare, create a comprehensive network of interoperable systems of clinical, public health, and personal health information; and set standards and laws that support all facets of individual health, healthcare, and public health.

The three main dimensions of the NHII will be:

Personal Health - includes a personal health record that is created and controlled by the individual or family member in order to maintain a comprehensive medical history, to track and trend labs and profiles, and to communicate medical information to providers confidentially.

Healthcare Delivery - includes provider notes, orders, prescribing programs, and practice guidelines maintained by the physician for their own patients’ medical records.

Public Health - enables sharing of information to improve the clinical management of populations.

Experts in eight key areas spoke on: Personal Health; Governance; Incentives; Standards and Architecture; Confidentiality; Ethics; Privacy and Access; Measuring Progress; Population Health; and Clinical Research. These are all key to addressing the underlying mission of improving patient safety and the quality of healthcare and to better inform and empower the healthcare consumers regarding their personal health information and healthcare costs. CapMed was selected to serve on the Personal Health Record expert panel.

Please find more information on NHII at US Department of Health and Human Services