By Mike Shields
KHI NEWS SERVICE
MONTPELIER, VT., Aug. 2
A 140-page
plan
for widespread adoption of electronic medical records was released here this week by a non-profit group formed two years ago to advance the digital exchange of information among Vermont”s health care providers.
The Vermont Health Information Technology Plan was developed by Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc., a public-private partnership, after seven months of meetings and consultations with more than 30 representatives of various health and governmental organizations.
“This is meant to be a living document and it will be updated as discussions between stakeholders continue,” said the group”s board Chairman Cy Jordan, describing the report.
The partnership was charged by the Vermont General Assembly with writing the plan, which has been submitted to the legislature and various state agencies for consideration and possible implementation.
The plan”s authors weren”t specific about the plan”s costs but called for additional state spending of at least $1 million a year to help meet projected annual operating costs of about $3 million drawn from a variety of revenue sources, including fees, contributions and federal funds.
The plan calls for the incremental building of a “hybrid” system that would accommodate centralized data repositories and retrieval of data from distributed nodes on a network.
Among its findings, the report noted that funding would be needed to accelerate adoption of technology among providers, especially small practices in a state where only 54 percent of rural providers reported access to broadband Internet, which is considered essential for participating in a digitized health information exchange system.
The plan”s authors said it is a roadmap that would allow Vermont to meet the Bush administration”s goal that most Americans have “interoperable” electronic health records by 2014. The president outlined his goal in his 2004 State of the Union address and signed an executive order creating the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology within the federal department of Health and Human Services.
The administration has said that widespread adoption of electronic medical records will:
*
Improve health care quality;
*
Prevent medical errors;
*
Reduce health care costs;
*
Increase administrative efficiencies;
*
Decrease paperwork; and
*
Expand access to affordable care.
Officials in Vermont said the state is ahead of most on achieving the goal of having interoperable health records linked through a health information exchange.
Kansas also has a public-private partnership in the process of developing a state health information plan.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in February signed an
executive order
creating the Kansas Health Information Exchange Commission, a 17-member panel that held its first meeting in late March.
Also in February, The Governor’s Health Information Technology/Health Information Exchange (HIT/HIE) Policy Initiative issued a report recommending the establishment of a “resource center” as a single coordination point for health information exchange efforts. The Kansas commission currently is developing a list of factors it considers critical for success of a future resource center
The 2007 Legislature approved $125,000 for the Kansas Health Policy Authority to continue the Community Health Record program in Sedgwick County, a pilot health information exchange program. It also approved $750,000 for the health policy authority”s other health information exchange efforts.
-Mike Shields is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
mshields@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 123.