On September 14 and 15, my colleague, Tatiana Melnik and I, attended the HIMSS (Health Information Management Systems Society) 10th Annual Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. The Summit focused on HIMSS' policy initiatives pertaining to health information technology (HIT), and included in-depth analysis of the underlying HIT issues from subject matter experts representing a wide variety of disciplines. The Summit is timely based in light of the ongoing uncertainty in the HIT legal and regulatory arena, particularly as to the various financial incentives for health care industry adoption of electronic health records systems.

As part of a four person Michigan delegation, Tatiana and I visited the offices of Senator Debbie Stabenow (D - MI) and Senator Jon Kyl (R – AZ) to discuss the following HIMSS policy initiatives:

  • In order to improve the quality of your constituents' health care while also reducing its costs, such as through elimination of duplicative care, Congress should continue its strong bipartisan support for Health Information Technology.
  • 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.
  • 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.

It was clear that both sides of the aisle support and desire to continue to support HIT given the long term financial and services level improvements in implementing technology. Nonetheless, neither side could make any promises given the pending legislative fight in Congress.

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