WEDI Hopes to Duplicate Success of its Influential 1993 Report

Nearly 20 years ago in December 1993, the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange issued the WEDI Report that gave a roadmap for industrywide adoption of EDI to automate the processing of claims and related administrative and financial transactions.


Nearly 20 years ago in December 1993, the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange issued the WEDI Report that gave a roadmap for industrywide adoption of EDI to automate the processing of claims and related administrative and financial transactions.

Publication of the report spurred the administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, much as the Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report, To Err is Human, led to an accelerated effort to improve patient safety.

Now, WEDI is developing a new report expected for release in December 2013 that will identify the impacts of administrative and clinical technologies during the past two decades and lessons learned, as well as the likely role of emerging technologies in coming years. Lewis Sullivan, former Health and Human Services Secretary who formed WEDI in 1991, will serve on a 15-member steering committee overseeing the new report. The goal, he says, is to have a new roadmap to guide the next generation of health information exchange.

WEDI has commissioned Cornichon Healthcare Select LLC, a Charleston, SC-based consultancy as project manager and writer of the new report. Edward Jones III, CEO of the firm, is a WEDI veteran and past chair.

Others joining Sullivan on the steering committee include: Mark Bertolini, CEO at Aetna; Doug Fridsma, M.D., chief science officer at ONC; John Glaser, CEO at the Health Services unit of Siemens Healthcare; Lynn Thomas Gordon, CEO at the American Health Information Management Association; Mary Grealy, president of the Healthcare Leadership Council; Karen Ignagni, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans; Mark Jurkovich, D.D.S, a practicing dentist representing the American Dental Association; Charles Kahn III, CEO at the Federation of American Hospitals; Farzad Mostashari, M.D., National Coordinator for Health Information Technology; Matt Salo, executive director at the National Association of Medicaid Directors; Scott Serota, CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Steven Stack, M.D., chair of the American Medical Association; Robert Tagalicod, director of the office of e-health standards and services at CMS; Susan Turney, M.D., CEO of the Medical Group Management Association; and Bernard Tyson, incoming CEO at Kaiser Permanente.

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