ENZI, KENNEDY, BUSINESS LEADERS URGE PASSAGE OF HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LEGISLATION SAY CONGRESS COULD ACT NOW TO SAVE LIVES, REDUCE MEDICAL COSTS

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Ranking Member ofthe Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today rallied withSenator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Chairman of the HELP Committee, and the CEOs ofsome of America’s largest employers to urge passage of the “Wired for Health CareQuality Act,” S. 1693, a bipartisan bill that will encourage the adoption of cutting-edgeinformationtechnologies in health care to improve patient care, reduce medical errors,and cut health care costs. “Doctors, hospitals, health care advocates, and the business community –including small business – are clamoring for Congress to take action and establishuniform health IT standards,” Enzi said. “Time is of the essence. Pen and paper recordkeeping can’t keep pace with the miraculous advances being made in medical science andhealth care. Keeping one foot in the 20th Century while trying to prepare our health caresystem for the difficult challenges that lie ahead just won’t work. Congress should act onHealth IT legislation as soon as possible, so that we can establish an interconnected,nationwide health technology system to improve the quality of care in this country.”Enzi said the bill will lay the foundation for technology and information sharingamong doctors, hospitals, and insurers to ensure that patient data, insurance and medicalhistories are available wherever and whenever treatment is needed. A Rand Corporationstudy projected a potential savings of $162 billion a year for the health care industryunder the initiative. “Information is power, and this bill puts that power in the hands of doctors andhealth professionals for the good of their patients,” Enzi said. “This bipartisan bill willeliminate duplicative tests and reduce medical errors. Moving from a paper-based healthcare system to secure electronic medical records will save lives and reduce skyrocketinghealth care costs.” The bill is cosponsored by Senator Kennedy, Senator Enzi, Senator Orrin Hatch(R-UT), and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). Joining the Senate leaders were BusinessRoundtable members Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman and CEO of Verizon CommunicationsInc., and Ronald A. Williams, Chairman and CEO of Aetna Inc. The four called forspeedy passage of the bill, which seeks to replace the current system of paper recordswith secure, privacy-protected electronic records. THE WIRED FOR HEALTH CARE QUALITY ACT Information technology is transforming all aspects of our modern society, but adoption ofIT within health care has progressed slowly. IT systems linked securely and with strongprivacy protections to patients’ medical records can improve the quality and efficiency ofcare while producing significant cost savings. Despite the potential benefits of health IT,investment and adoption has been limited, particularly among smaller providers who aremost affected by the financial cost of implementing a health IT system. The legislation encourages the development of interoperability standards for health ITthrough:• Codifying the role of the National Coordinator for Health InformationTechnology in coordinating the policies of federal agencies regarding health IT.• Establishing a public–private partnership known as the Partnership for HealthCare Improvement to provide recommendations to the Health and HumanServices (HHS) Secretary with regard to technical aspects of interoperability,standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria for theexchange of health information. Requiring all federal IT purchases conform tothe standards recommended by the Partnership and adopted by the President.Adoption of these standards is voluntary for private entities. • Establishing the American Health Information Community as a body providingrecommendations to the Secretary regarding policies to promote the developmentof a nationwide interoperable health information technology infrastructure. Theseinclude recommendations regarding patient privacy, information security, andappropriate uses of health information. The legislation assures strong privacy protections for electronic health information by:• Requiring that the national strategy on health IT includes strong privacyprotections, including methods to notify patients if their medical information iswrongfully disclosed. The legislation encourages the adoption of qualified health IT to improve the quality andefficiency of care by: • Providing grants for the purchase of health IT systems to providers demonstratingfinancial need.• Providing grants to states to establish low interest loan programs to help providersacquire health IT systems that will improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare.• Providing grants to facilitate the implementation of regional or local healthinformation plans to improve health care quality and efficiency through theelectronic exchange of health information.The legislation will help providers use IT to improve quality by:• Providing grants to integrate qualified health IT in the clinical education of healthprofessionals and encourage the use of decision support software to reducemedical errors.• Requiring the HHS Secretary to designate a single organization to develophealthcare performance measures.• Establishing a Health Information Technology Resource Center where IT userscan learn from the previous experience of others who have implemented qualifiedhealth IT. ###