Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

New report on the health IT initiative details advances, future plans.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a report on Jan. 23 promising that federal health-care delivery systems will comply with newly adopted federal "Interoperability Specifications" by December 2007. This announcement marks a major step toward establishing the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), which President Bush mandated in 2004.

Only 10 percent of physician's offices currently use electronic health records (EHRs), HHS-sponsored research by George Washington University reveals. While that relative paucity of EHRs might seem discouraging, many health care providers have already committed to abide by the new interoperability specifications.

"Nearly 200 public and private health-care purchasers, including several states, counties and cities, have agreed to implement the principles of the President's Value-Driven Health Care Executive Order in their health-care procurement programs," the Health Information Technology Initiative (HITI) said in a statement. These entities have pledged that they will only do business with providers who agree to purchase health IT systems in compliance with interoperability specifications as they update their systems.

Only after health care providers adopt software in compliance with interoperability standards will plans for an NHIN become operable.

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt has not yet determined the final shape of that network. Four consortia led by Accenture, Computer Science Corporation, International Business Machines and Northrop Grumman contracted to deliver a potential prototype for an NHIN, and the HITI received those sample information architectures earlier this month.

"These prototypes are the key to information portability for American consumers and are a major step in our national effort to modernize health care delivery," says David Brailer, the former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for HHS.

The next phase of NHIN work will connect the prototypes to state and regional health-information exchange programs in an effort to create a secure national network that will enable patients to receive the highest quality care even when receiving health care from a provider without access to paper-based records.

"This effort will help design an information network that will transform our health care system, resulting in higher quality, lower costs, less hassle and better care for American consumers," promises Leavitt. That assurance arrives in a timely fashion for a president whose proposals for health care reform in the State of the Union were greeted skeptically by Democrats.

For more information on the HITI's progress, visit: www.hhs.gov/healthit.