Officials Say E-Prescribing Technology Bill Likely Will Pass This Year; Forum Discusses Health IT Privacy Concerns

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Pharmacy / Pharmacist;  Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP;  Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 07 Mar 2008 - 8:00 PDT

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Summaries of two recent articles about health care information technology appear below.

• E-prescribing technology: Legislation that would require physicians who participate in Medicare to adopt electronic prescribing technology likely will pass this year, but other health care IT programs likely will take longer to implement, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said on Tuesday at an event sponsored by SureScripts and the National Community Pharmacists Association, CQ HealthBeat reports. In December 2007, Kerry and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) introduced the bill (S 2408) that would provide permanent Medicare funds for bonuses to physicians who adopt e-prescribing technology. Gingrich, founder of the Center for Health Transformation, said that complete adoption of e-prescribing technology could occur within three years (Nylen, CQ HealthBeat, 3/4).
  
  
• Patient privacy: Participants at a forum last week sponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform discussed measures to protect patient privacy in an interoperable health care IT system, CQ HealthBeat reports. According to CQ HealthBeat, although "there is great agreement" that health care IT legislation -- such as a bill (S 1693) sponsored by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) -- could improve the quality of care and reduce costs, privacy advocates have withheld support because of a lack of "language safeguarding privacy rights." Deborah Peel, founder of Patient Privacy Rights, said, "If patients don't believe their information is being used to help them, they won't disclose" (Nylen, CQ HealthBeat, 3/3).
  
  A webcast of the Alliance event is available online at kaisernetwork.org.

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