WASHINGTON - The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), along with two former Congress members, announced Tuesday the formation of Health IT Now!, Healthy Patients for Health Technology, a coalition formed to promote the rapid deployment of health information technology (Health IT).
“Health care costs are a major headache for manufacturers, small and large,” said NAM President John Engler. “But the cure isn’t aspirin, it’s technology. This new coalition will be actively pressing Congress to enact legislation to lift the regulatory barriers to implementing Health IT, to provide incentives for adoption of information technology and direct government attention and resources to the issue.”
The coalition is chaired by former Representative Nancy Johnson and former Senator John Breaux, and unites patients, practitioners and employers to push for federal legislation to promote a connected health care IT system.
Health IT Now! is pushing for federal legislation including:
• Permanence in statute for a federal responsibility to lead a public-private process to establish standards for system interoperability, product certification, and quality measures and an accelerated process for standards improvement;
• Federal financial incentives to practitioners of care to facilitate the adoption of Health IT, and for communities, states and other entities to plan HIT components and develop Health Information Exchanges;
• Federal focus on consumer empowerment through patient education tools to encourage patient use of electronic health records and provider quality information; and
• Federal leadership of a federal-state process to resolve policy issues, like privacy and professional licensure, to provide a secure and safe care system.
To learn more about Health IT Now!, click here.