Health IT Experts Say Incentives May Be Needed To Encourage Physicians To Adopt Electronic Systems

Health care information technology experts on Tuesday said that implementation of electronic health records and electronic prescribing will reduce costs by billions of dollars and save lives but added that health care providers might require financial incentives to adopt the technologies, CongressDaily reports.

At a conference sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Chamber Foundation, experts said that although larger physician groups and many pharmacies have begun to adopt such technologies, many smaller physician groups and pharmacies in rural areas have not, in large part because of cost issues. Privacy issues also have delayed the adoption of such technologies, experts said (Posner/Johnson, CongressDaily, 3/11).

Weems Discusses Medicare Pilot Program
At the conference, acting CMS Administrator Kerry Weems said that he and HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt in the next few weeks will visit at least 40 communities to promote a Medicare pilot program that uses EHRs, CQ HealthBeat reports.

Under the pilot program, HHS and CMS will recruit 100 physician practices in 12 communities to participate, with an additional 100 practices in the communities selected to serve as a randomized control group, Weems said. According to Weems, physician practices that participate in the pilot program will receive bonuses of as much as $58,000 per physician or as much as $290,000 per practice after they implement EHRs and meet certain quality standards over a period of five years (Grimaldi, CQ HealthBeat, 3/11).

CMS will select four communities in the pilot program this year and will select the other eight next year, and communities that seek to participate have until May to submit their applications, Weems said (Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, 3/11).

Privacy Program
In related news, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Health Privacy Project on Tuesday announced the launch of a program that seeks to address privacy issues related to the electronic transfer of health care information.

Deven McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project, said that the program seeks to address four major issues: the role of patient consent, whether to allow secondary uses of such information, patient access to such information and proper enforcement of violations (CongressDaily, 3/11).

Letter Calls for Passage of Health Care IT Bill
The "prompt passage of legislation pending in Congress is critical to the widespread and successful adoption" of health care IT, John Castellani, president of Business Roundtable, writes in a Washington Times letter to the editor. "Thanks to the hard bipartisan work" of several senators and "many others, legislation calling for a national health IT system has been written and vetted and stands ready for passage," Castellani writes, adding, "The public and private sector would benefit from this legislation."

He writes that although members of the group "stand ready to drive quick implementation" of EHRs, "we can't until we have clear and uniform interoperable standards," which the bill would establish. Castellani concludes, "We cannot wait any longer. The hard work is already done. Congress must pass health IT now" (Castellani, Washington Times, 3/11).