Report: 'Gaps and Barriers' Slow Health IT
By
John Pulley
The study group is co-led by Democrat Tom Daschle and Republican Bill Frist. The report, "Transforming Health Care: The Role of Health IT," identified several barriers that are impeding health IT benefits:
The report suggested several solutions to close those gaps and eliminate those barriers:
"Coordinated, accountable, patient-centered models of care, previously implemented by only a handful of high-performing organizations, are poised for more widespread adoption," says Janet Marchibroda, who chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center's health IT initiative, in a news . "Health IT not only plays a critical role in the success of these organizations, it also enables the rapid spread of the very functions that have made these models successful, to the rest of the U.S. health care system."
Health IT holds great promise to improve patient care and reduce costs, but that promise is compromised by "gaps and barriers" to achieving the full benefit of health IT, according to a new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center.
To illustrate its point in the report, the bipartisan study group determined common attributes of health-care organizations reaping the benefits of their health IT systems:
- A focus on patient needs across the organization.
- Strong organizational and clinical leadership.
- Access to information to support efficient, coordinated care.
- Timely access to care.
- Emphasis on prevention, wellness and health behaviors.
- Accountability, alignment of incentives, and payment reform.
- Failure to align goals and incentives for health IT capabilities with a payment model promoting cost-effective, quality care over volume-based payment models.
- Limited availability of health information-exchange structures among providers.
- Limited use of electronic tools that can coordinate care, drive communication between providers and patients, and help patients manage their health and medical care.
- Limited adoption of electronic health records.
- Mistrust by patients about the level of privacy and security in EHRs and health information exchanges.
- A confusing jumble of federal priorities and rules for health IT, payment reforms, health-care coverage and access, administration and program integrity.
- Aligning incentives and payments with quality, cost-effectiveness and health IT-enabled care delivery models exchanging standards-based data across multiple organizations.
- Accelerating development of health information exchanges, including aligning the next stage of meaningful-use standards with that goal.
- Public- and private-sector collaboration to help consumers use electronic tools to become more engaged in their health care.
- Expanding education about how to implement health IT systems and the availability of help with implementation.
- Issuing clear, comprehensive guidance of how health IT can comply with federal laws protecting the security of personal health information.
- Aligning federal health care and health IT programs more closely.
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