Chairman Gordon’s Statement on Health IT Draft Legislation
Washington, DC) –The House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on a discussion draft of legislation on Health IT and Privacy. House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN), who is also a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, offered the following statement:
First, I want to make clear that I fully support Chairman Pallone’s and Chairman Dingell’s efforts to have Congress play a more active role in developing a national Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) infrastructure. The goal of this draft legislation is to promote and improve current Federal efforts.
HHS is behind schedule, and little progress has been made since the President’s announcement in 2004. In addition, HHS has yet to develop its strategic plan on how it intends to proceed.
If we want to develop a seamless network of electronic healthcare information, key components are the technical standards to ensure interoperability, security and electronic authentication for confidentiality. However, technical standards alone are not enough. There must be technical conformance tests and testbeds to guarantee software products meet the required standards.
When the financial services, banking, retail, manufacturing and telecom industries faced similar challenges in developing these technical standards and conformance tests, they turned to a single Federal agency for assistance – the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Working with these industries and the private sector, NIST developed standards and tests, and we have all benefited from NIST’s efforts.
Last year, the Committee on Science and Technology reported out a bipartisan bill to use NIST in addressing these technical issues.
Though resolution of the technical hurdles is the necessary first step toward broadly deploying Health IT, it is important that Congress takes a comprehensive approach to addressing this issue. I believe the bill we are discussing today does that.
This draft legislation highlights the importance of technical standards and conformance tests and acknowledges NIST’s expertise and proven track record. I want to thank Chairman Pallone and Chairman Dingell for working with me in addressing this key issue.
Most of the focus on EHR’s has been as a cost-saving measure. As the recent CBO report stressed, EHR’s have the potential to significantly reduce costs. However, our focus should also be on the demonstrated fact that a fully interoperable EHR system can improve patient care and make it easier for our health care professionals to do their jobs.
Health care costs are important; however, the bottom line is we should make every effort to improve the quality and efficiency of care delivered to our constituents.
I will work diligently with Chairman Pallone and Chairman Dingell to move this legislation through Congress expeditiously.
For more information, please see the House Committee on Science and Technology website.
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