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September 5, 2006 - The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has launched an 18-month-long project to examine state governments’ role in health IT and how state legislatures can advance the adoption of e-health records in their states.
Approximately fifteen state legislators and staff members will guide the study project, known as Health IT Champions, or HITCh, said Kala Ladenheim, the project director. The team will be headed by Massachusetts State Sen. Richard T. Moore, Florida State Rep. Holly Benson, and Joseph Flores, fiscal analyst for the Virginia General Assembly. Moore and Benson head the health committees of their legislative bodies.
The project hasn’t yet decided which issues it will tackle, she said, but telehealth services, state support for health information exchanges, Medicaid, quality and patient safety, transparency, pay for performance, privacy and workforce issues are possible candidates.
“The major barriers [to health IT adoption] are not technical, they’re political,” Senator Moore said. He said legislators could be helpful in overcoming those barriers, particularly because the issues are complex and “legislators are incredibly effective translators” of complexity. Senator Moore led successful passage of a $5million appropriation for health IT as part of Massachusetts’ recent landmark health care reform law. He is also the primary author of legislation to authorize electronic transactions to prescribe medications in Massachusetts.
The Health IT Champions (HITCh) project team will meet for the first time in December in conjunction with the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Fall Forum meeting in San Antonio in early December. A project scoping session was held at the NCSL Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN recently.
NCSL has also adopted a policy endorsing an interoperable national health information system. The policy says privacy and information security are critical for a nationwide health information network. The policy also acknowledges the critical need for Medicaid, Medicare and other publicly financed programs to be active participants in the system, and for appropriators to make funding such a program a priority.
States have pursued a bevy of health information technology bills in recent months, according to a report issued earlier this year by the eHealth Initiative – a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care through the use of IT. The report notes that 38 state legislatures introduced 121 bills in 2005 and 2006 that call for the use of health IT as a tool for improving patient care. More than half of the bills were introduced in the first seven months of this year. In addition, governors issued 10 executive orders requesting the development of health IT strategies.
“Rising health care costs, the ever-increasing number of uninsured [people], and concerns about quality and safety are stimulating leadership in health care reform across the states,” the report states. “Several state leaders are responding by integrating [health IT] into their reform plans or integrating quality goals and objectives into their [health IT]-related planning efforts.” Massachusetts is among the states leading this effort.
“State legislators and governors alike recognize that federal action alone isn’t enough to drive transformation in our healthcare system,” said Janet Marchibroda, eHealth Initiative’s chief executive officer. “Healthcare is indeed local, and the changes needed to improve quality, safety and efficiency—in the physician practice, in the hospital, in the plan, and across markets, takes collaboration among and commitment of these stakeholders in the community. Local policy-makers are now taking steps to engage those stakeholders, develop plans, and fund pilots related to [health IT] to stimulate change.”
Market researchers peg the state and local health care and welfare IT market at $7.6 billion in fiscal 2006 with an anticipated expansion to $12.2 billion by fiscal 2011. Consequently, there is considerable interest in the work of the HITCh project by policy makers and leaders in the IT field.
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