[rninformatics]

March 14, 2008

HHS Secretary: EHRs Will Improve Care, Lower Costs
HHS' electronic health record demonstration project, development of common standards and certification for EHRs, and its chartered collaboratives for delivering quality health care all will help to provide "better care at a lower cost for all Americans," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt writes in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch opinion piece (Leavitt, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3/13).

Leavitt is traveling to communities nationwide to stump for the EHR demonstration project, which will offer up to 1,200 small and medium-sized medical practices financial incentives for adopting EHRs and improving the quality of care. Physicians will receive up to $58,000, and each practice will receive up to $290,000 (iHealthBeat, 3/13).

Leavitt writes that the benefits of EHRs can "make a big difference in treatment," alert physicians to "possible drug interactions and allergies," and offer the capability to prescribe electronically.

Leavitt also says HHS' plan is to develop "common standards and a certification process that will allow physicians to incorporate [EHRs] into their practices with confidence."

He also outlines HHS' chartering of local and regional health collaboratives, called Chartered Value Exchanges, which "publish information on the quality of care" for consumers and create competitive prices.

Leavitt concludes that when physician offices, hospitals, labs, pharmacies, consumers and researchers are connected through compatible IT systems, the health care sector will be "a safer, more efficient, value-driven" system (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3/13).