The eHealth Initiative advocacy group and more than 20 other organizations have jointly sent a letter to members of Congress urging full integration of health information technology provisions of the economic stimulus law into broader health reform legislation.
"In 2008, the Congressional Budget Office noted that the clearest benefits of using health I.T. had been identified and measured in integrated care systems where health I.T. was already tied into the functions of the system," according to the letter. "Any major redesign of our health care system must be grounded in a well-defined relationship with the meaningful use of health information technology in order to achieve that advanced level of interconnectivity and interoperability."
If the adoption and meaningful use of health I.T. is viewed separately from reform, "the likelihood will only increase that the money spent to encourage health I.T. adoption and information exchange will be squandered due to our failure to leverage the capacity of electronic health information and tools to enable and accelerate health reform that is built on the foundation of health information," the organizations' letter states.
Text of the letter to Congress is available at ehealthinitiative.org.
--Joseph Goedert
JUN 11, 2009 4:28pm ET
Congress Asked to Integrate I.T., Reform
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