Rep. Kennedy: Stimulus big chance for health IT overhaul

Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., who co-chairs the 21st Century Health Care Caucus, said today improvements to the U.S. healthcare system, particularly through investments in information technology, should be part of the stimulus package that lawmakers plan to unveil early next year.

"We're not going to get an opportunity like this again in a long, long time," he said, speaking at a briefing sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. The stimulus is a chance for Congress to focus on several initiatives that will offer long-term economic benefits, he said. Kennedy's comments come as key congressional staffers are starting discussions about how such language could be folded into the stimulus package.

Kennedy, who introduced legislation this session to create a public-private partnership to promote transportable, consumer-controlled health records, noted that healthcare investments are so important that they would likely outweigh deficit reduction. "This year is a year where investments and spending are critical elements to the stimulus of our economy," he said, adding that harnessing health IT to cut costs and reduce medical errors is the "lowest hanging fruit." President-elect Obama has made clear that updating health IT infrastructure is a priority, Kennedy said.

At the event, HIMSS President Stephen Lieber offered specific proposals to create a "robust" health IT infrastructure. One would be an investment of $25 million to incentivize health IT adoption among nongovernmental hospitals and physician practices, with additional funding allocated to federal and state-owned healthcare providers. HIMSS also wants to see the State Children's Health Insurance Program expanded to make health IT available to Medicaid and SCHIP providers, and it has called for any federal health IT assistance funding to hinge on compliance with set interoperability and certification specifications.

The group will push for a White House health IT summit within Obama's first 90 days; an expansion of exemptions and anti-kickback safe harbors for electronic medical records; and the codification of a senior-level health IT leader within the administration and an existing public-private sector health IT standards body.