Nationwide EHR adoption critical to health care reform
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) revealed the first draft of the healthcare reform bill, the "Affordable Health Choices Act." Competing versions of the healthcare reform legislation are expected shortly from senior House Democrats, including Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Sen. Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. According to the Los Angeles Times, while the various drafts will differ significantly, congressional Democrats agree on three broad goals for the new healthcare framework:
- Improving the quality of care for everyone by encouraging doctors, hospitals and others to adopt the best, most effective courses of treatment.
- Curbing the explosive growth in costs by prodding the medical system to make more cost-effective decisions and to increase efficiency by moving to computerized medical records.
- Expanding coverage to those who do not have health insurance.
Sen. Kennedy's bill does not provide additional funding for adoption of EHR systems, but, according to Piper Jaffrey senior research analyst Sean Wieland interviewed today by Healthcare IT News, "the use of the data generated from these yet-to-be-installed systems is a central theme throughout [Kennedy's] 615-page bill."
Wieland continued:
The language in the bill is a dramatic shift towards a pay-for-performance reimbursement model ... Public and private health plans will be required to provide incentives for the provision of high quality healthcare, including the implementation of case/disease management, promotion of the medical home model, prevention of hospital re-admissions, promotion of patient safety and reduced medical errors through the use of best practices and evidence-based medicine and additional incentives for the use of health information technology.
The first public hearing on the draft bill are scheduled for tomorrow, June 11, 2009, with mark-ups beginning on June 16, 2009.
In general, healthcare reform is going to be the blockbuster debate not only of this year, but perhaps of the entire Obama Presidency. There is much disagreement about the proposed solutions among Democrats, while Republicans will almost certainly oppose any effort as unnecessarily government intervention. Washington Post provides an excellent summary of the history of healthcare reform in the last 16 years. The Post article ends with a quote from - appropriately - Hillary Clinton's pollster Geoff Garin:
Compared to any other time in the last 30 or 40 years, there's a better chance of success than ever before. But this is going to be like a Indiana Jones movie, where we kind of slip through a lot of narrow escapes.
"A healthcare reform bill will affect nearly everyone", Los Angeles Times (June 10, 2009).
"IT central to health reform draft bill released Tuesday", Healthcare IT News (June 10, 2009).
"On Health Care, Congress Must Navigate Tricky Political Terrain", Washington Post (June 10, 2009).
