Health Care IT Trade Group Expresses Opposition To Rep. Stark's Electronic Health Records Bill

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 01 Oct 2008 - 7:00 PDT

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In a letter to House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chair Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and ranking member Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society expressed opposition to some provisions of a bill (HR 6898) intended to encourage nationwide adoption of electronic health records, CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 9/26).

The bill, introduced by Stark, would codify within HHS the position of health information technology coordinator and create a federal advisory committee, which would be charged with creating by 2011 a final version of standards governing interoperability and security, and capitalizing on the clinical use of health IT. In addition, the bill would direct that open-source technology be developed and made available to health care providers at a "nominal cost" (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 9/16).

The letter, released on Thursday, stated that the proposal to create a federal advisory committee could "dismantle the work that the federal government and private sector have already achieved." The letter also stated that development, routine updating and provision of an open-source health IT system "is not the role of the federal government and such product development should remain in the private sector," adding, "Health care IT is available via a competitive market in which vendors compete on the basis of price, quality and functionality of a product" (CongressDaily, 9/26).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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