Hearing of the Technology & Innovation Subcommittee of the House Science Committee - Standards for Health IT: Meaningful Use and Beyond

Statement

Good morning. I would like to welcome everybody to today's hearing on healthcare information technology.

In the Internet age, most of us take for granted being able to rapidly and seamlessly share information with someone across town, in another state, or on the other side of the world. We also take for granted the ubiquitous integration of information technology in our workplace and in many other aspects of our daily lives.

In contrast, the health care industry is still surprisingly paper-based and largely unaided by information technology. Medical treatment in this country often involves state-of-the-art technology. However, physicians and other health care providers have been slow to adopt health IT systems and electronic health records--or EHRs--and are still keeping track of our medical information the same way they were 50 years ago.

The use of information technology has real-world implications for the cost and quality of health care. Currently, providers may order a duplicative test because previous test results from another provider are not readily at hand, or they may miss a harmful drug interaction because a patient's full prescription drug record is not available. According to most estimates, a fully interoperable health IT system could save us billions of dollars in health care costs each year. In addition, greater use of information technology could prevent some of the medical errors that, as reported by the National Academies, are responsible for the deaths of approximately 98,000 people each year.

A key barrier to broader integration of health IT systems has been the lack of technical standards to support interoperability and protect data and privacy. Many physicians, particularly those in small practices where most Americans get their health care, are hesitant to take on the considerable expense of a health IT system that, without common standards, may not work with the systems of a neighboring health care provider or may become prematurely obsolete.

This is the third hearing the Science and Technology Committee will have held on health IT standards since the 109th Congress. I am very eager to hear about the progress we have made on standards, especially since the implementation of the HITECH Act. In that act, Congress included a directive to the federal agencies before us today to establish health IT standards and develop related measures to enable different manufacturers and vendors to produce software and other devices that will work with other products on the market today, as well as tomorrow.

Given the complexity of our healthcare system, with its myriad of players and large number of state and federal laws governing personal medical information, the HITECH Act charged the Office of the National Coordinator with a very difficult task. From all reports, though, the National Coordinator has done an admirable job meeting tight deadlines and navigating the needs of many stakeholders. NIST has also played an important role, lending to HHS its extensive expertise in standards, testing, and certification.

However, as I am sure we will discuss today, we still have a ways to go in promoting interoperability, coordinating the many health IT projects underway, governing the standards development process, and providing direction on privacy and security. Modernizing our health care system with information technology is imperative for lowering health care costs and improving patient care, and I look forward to hearing the thoughts and recommendations of the witnesses today on how we will successfully meet these challenges.

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