‘We believe in health IT’: Sebelius

By Joseph Conn

Posted: February 23, 2011 – 11:00 am ET

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called on members of the health information technology community to stay the course with healthcare reform and the government’s meaningful-use health information technology incentive program while outgoing ONC head Dr. David Blumenthal delivered his swan song as the two delivered back-to-back keynote speeches Wednesday at the HIMSS convention in Orlando, Fla.
Sebelius said that despite “lots of disagreement” in Congress on budget deficits and other matters, health information technology “is one of those issues where Democrats and Republicans stand together.”

The Obama administration also remains firmly supportive, she said.

“We believe in health IT because it’s an investment in a stronger economy” and understand its “huge job-creating potential,” Sebelius said.

“There is no doubt we’re in a very tough budget environment,” she said, noting the Obama administration has proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in budget cuts. But the administration also realizes “it’s equally important to keep the investments that will keep our economy growing” and to improve the health of the nation. The Obama budget includes a 25% increase to run the ONC, she said.

“Close to a third of our healthcare spending, about $700 billion a year, goes to pay for healthcare that doesn’t benefit anyone’s health,” she said. “We need you to be a part of the conversation to improve health in the country. Healthcare reform needs IT, but health IT needs healthcare reform,” she said. “We need you to be more than advocates for the technology. We need you to be advocates for the healthcare system that makes these systems have the most impact.”

Sebelius also asked HIMSS members to “work harder” to close the digital divides between large urban and small rural healthcare providers and assist those serving racial minorities. Perhaps in a veiled response to those in the IT community calling for an extension of the timeline before more stringent meaningful-use criteria must be met to qualify for federal EHR incentive payments, Sebelius asked, rhetorically, “The question remains, how long will we have to wait before we enjoy the benefits of that technology?”

The answer, she said, “depends how aggressively we push. We can make more progress on health IT in the nation in the next five years than we have in the last 50.”

“Work with us,” she said. “We’ve come this far together and now we need to finish this very important job.”

Blumenthal, who previously announced he would be stepping down this spring as the ONC leader, outlined the accomplishments made by the office since taking over in April 2009, including launching 62 regional IT extension centers, establishing IT education programs in 84 community colleges, provided funding for state health information exchanges and working with the CMS to start EHR incentive payment programs under Medicare and Medicaid.

The RECs, which provide doctors and hospitals assistance in buying and installing EHRs, are enrolling 6,000 providers a week and have 47,000 signed up, Blumenthal said. “We’re well on our way to our target to have 100,000 providers become meaningful users,” he said.

The educational programs have 3,400 trainees due to graduate this spring, Blumenthal said.

“Today, every state and territory has a health IT coordinator, and 35 states have implementation plans for health information exchange,” Blumenthal said.

So far, he said, 21,300 providers have registered for incentive payments under Medicare and Medicaid. Four states have paid out $20 million in Medicaid IT incentive payments, and starting May 1, Medicare will begin paying meaningful users of EHRs.

Work is under way developing Stage 2 meaningful-use criteria for use beginning in 2013 and a panel of privacy and security advisers is developing recommendations for national policies in those areas, he said.

“We are aware that the timetable for Stage 2 of meaningful use will be challenging,” he said, but ONC remains committed that Stage 2 goals “will be reasonable and achievable.”

“It’s a huge opportunity and to take advantage of it, the health IT community has to rise at the challenge,” Blumenthal said. Health IT has to be at the center as a “co-developer” of the healthcare system of the future, he said. “We are now poised, I think, as a community, to make unprecedented strides in the welfare of mankind.”

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110223/NEWS/302239989&template=printpicart