Universal Electronic Health Records

Recommended By HHS Secretary

 While Connecticut has been spared from the wrath of many of the country’s recent hurricane disasters, weather experts say the next “big one,” could hit the Nutmeg State at any time, possibly with as little as a few days warning. And with many medical providers still compiling vital patient records in paper format, any type of storm that could bring widespread water damage is an information debacle waiting to happen.

The medical problems encountered by Hurricane Katrina evacuees should prompt health care providers to stop storing patient data on paper and instead use electronic systems that can be accessed around the country, the nation’s top health official said recently.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told four governors attending the annual conference of the Southern Governors’ Association that they could help spur such a change by denying state contracts to health care companies that resist the push to store patient data in an electronic form that can be accessed by doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, and other health workers.

Beginning this fall, Mr Leavitt said, federal agencies will not deal with companies that fail to make the switch.

“It will be a condition of doing business with us,” Mr Leavitt said.

Doctors, nurses, and others who treated Katrina victims in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, the Astrodome in Houston, and elsewhere reported that people did not know what medicines they were on and showed up with pill bottles whose labels had fallen off. Others did not know their allergies or other details about their health.

Proponents of electronic storage of health data said such a system would have allowed secure storage but easy access to that information for the doctors and nurses who treated the evacuees.

Governors Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky, and Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia attended Monday’s panel discussion on the final day of the association’s three-day meeting.

All were supportive of the electronic storage of patient data, but none committed themselves to Leavitt’s proposal to withhold state contracts. The governors of 15 Southern states, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are members of the association.

In June, Secretary Leavitt announced the formation of a national collaboration and the establishment of four requests for proposals (RFPs) that will advance efforts to reach President Bush’s call for most Americans to have electronic health records within ten years.

The President’s vision would create a personal health record that patients, doctors, and other health care providers could securely access through the Internet no matter where a patient is seeking medical care. Today’s announcement provides a way for patients, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and employers to agree on standards for electronic health records and ways to achieve interoperability — the ability to access this vital medical information immediately and efficiently.

“The national strategy for achieving interoperability of digital health information is for federal agencies — who pay for more than one-third of all health care in the country — to work with private-sector health care providers and employers in developing and adopting an architecture, standards, and certification process,” Secretary Leavitt said.

An electronic health record is a digital collection of a patient’s medical history and could include items like diagnosed medical conditions, prescribed medications, vital signs, immunizations, lab results, and personal characteristics like age and weight.

“The use of electronic health records and other information technology will transform our health care system by reducing medical errors, minimizing paperwork hassles, lowering costs, and improving quality of care,” Secretary Leavitt said. “We will bring together the public and private health care sectors to transform health care as we know it.”

The cornerstone of this effort, a private-public collaboration called the American Health Information Community (AHIC), will help nationwide transition to electronic health records — including common standards and interoperability — in a smooth, market-led way. The AHIC, which will be formed under the auspices of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, will provide input and recommendations to HHS on how to make health records digital and interoperable, and assure that the privacy and security of those records are protected.

 The Associated Press contributed to this report.