Service Documentation Monthly Journal
Source: The Academy of Healthcare Revenue

Health IT Initiatives Impacting HIM Continue Nationwide

At a recent hearing held by the Senate Budget Committee, Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, was closely questioned by U.S. senators about health IT spending included in President Bush’s proposed fiscal 2008 budget. A renewed focus by lawmakers on funding health IT initiatives is potentially good news for healthcare providers, as these funding programs can help providers implement new IT tools such as interoperable electronic health records (EHRs). Studies have shown that successful implementation of health IT can provide significant cost savings for providers, payers, and the patients they serve.

Healthcare IT supporters are greeting the proposed budget with cautious optimism; while industry experts speculate that the exact amount proposed in the budget may not be adopted, some add that the federal government is taking the right steps to advance healthcare IT.1 Health IT legislation is also returning to the table in 2007; in mid-February 2007, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) reintroduced legislation that would broaden the use of electronic health records, helping to boost adoption and implementation of interoperable EHRs. The widespread adoption of EHRs would help to eliminate redundancy, which can result in an “enormous” amount of spending, Clinton said. Without interoperable EHR networks, if a person needed to see a doctor while visiting another state, “you have to give a history, they’ll do tests and maybe you had that test a week ago,” Clinton explained.2

In addition to nearly doubling the budget of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, the proposed budget submitted by the Bush administration called for increased health IT-related funding at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The Bush budget would also support the following initiatives:3

• Implementing health IT standards.
• Conducting projects in up to 12 regions to test implementation of the American Health Information Community priority initiatives, which include EHRs, consumer empowerment, chronic care management, and biosurveillance. These projects would continue development work done in 2006 on the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) although the budget does not specifically mention the NHIN.
• Transitioning the American Health Information Community (AHIC), the high-level advisory committee headed by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, to a new, non-governmental entity that will take over many of AHIC’s functions. The new body will be called the Partnership for Health and Care Improvement.
• Coordinating efforts to resolve issues caused by variations in state laws, including privacy laws, that hinder exchanges in health data.

The push for health IT adoption is not only happening on the federal level; many state and local government bodies are also looking to the implementation of health IT as a way to slow the growth of healthcare spending and improve quality of care. In The Academy’s February 28th e-Brief, some of these state and local governments’ initiatives were profiled, including Wisconsin and New York City.

Studies have shown measurable financial benefits of health IT adoption. Several healthcare providers’ HIM departments have seen financial rewards with successful health IT implementation initiatives, although providers also bear most of the cost burden for implementing health IT systems. “There are some preliminary indications that use of EHRs is providing net financial benefits to some hospitals that have implemented them,” one report states, citing the example of Boston, Massachusetts-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which estimated that it achieved net savings of $5 - 10 million per year following installation of a computerized physician order entry system that reduced serious medication errors by 55 percent.4

In all, strategies for successfully implementing health IT will continue to grow in importance for healthcare providers. As was reported in The Academy’s February 15th e-Brief, two of the top three credit-rating agencies in the U.S. are utilizing levels of health IT adoption as a factor in rating non-profit hospitals’ credit-worthiness. Additionally, both government and private payers are increasingly demanding quality reporting that is extremely onerous for providers to complete without the assistance of automated health IT systems’ tracking, trending, and reporting capabilities. As federal, state, and local governments pass more health IT legislative initiatives, it is important for providers to proactively seek out and apply for whatever assistance these agencies offer for health IT implementation.

Pull Quote
The push for health IT adoption is not only happening on the federal level; many state and local government bodies are also looking to the implementation of health IT as a way to slow the growth of healthcare spending and improve quality of care.  

1.Nancy Ferris, “Health IT Budget Looks Healthy,” Federal Computer Week, 12 February 2007.
2.Alex Wayne, “From The CQ Newsroom: Bipartisan Children's Health Plan Unveiled,” CQ HealthBeat, 16 February 2007.
3.Nancy Ferris, “2008 Budget Would Give Booster Shot to Health IT,” Government Health IT, 15 February 2007.

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