Blumenthal: HITECH is specific about health information exchange
By Mary Mosquera
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The stimulus law compels the creation of ways to exchange health information within states and across a nationwide heath information technology infrastructure, according to the nation’s health IT coordinator.
A key premise of the HITECH Act is that information should follow the patient.
“Artificial obstacles – technical, business related, bureaucratic – should not get in the way,” said David Blumenthal in a public e-mail message.
Blumenthal’s office is preparing to award $564 million in grants to states to establish information exchange.
“We will start announcing the awards this winter,” Blumenthal said. “These grantees’ activities must support interoperability that lets patient data follow the patient across political and geographic boundaries.”
As a doctor, he said he wanted access many times to data that he knew were buried in the computers or paper records of another health system.
“That is what we must get beyond, and it will inform all our policy choices now and going forward,” he said.
Consumers also must be assured that the most advanced technology and proven business practices will be used to secure the privacy and security of their personal health information. That means strengthening existing protections, filling in gaps as they emerge, and supporting new opportunities for patients’ access to and control of their information, Blumenthal said.
The HITECH Act emphasizes interoperability.
“Policies, programs, and incentives must aim for electronic health record (EHR) software and systems that can share information with different EHRs and networks so that information can follow patients wherever they go,” he said.
The law also directed the Health and Human Services Department to invest in the infrastructure to support the nationwide electronic exchange and get health information moving.
The HITECH Act provides for incentives for physicians and hospitals that are meaningful users of health IT. Although the official definition of “meaningful use” is not yet published, the stimulus specifically requires information exchange as a qualifier for the incentives, Blumenthal said.
