AHRQ Official Says Nation On Track To Implement Health IT By 2014

WASHINGTON–The director of the Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality said the nation is ahead of schedule in meeting
President Bush’s deadline of having a nationwide health information
network and electronic health records for Americans by 2014.

AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy told a Senate panel Wednesday that
the next goal is achieving interoperability of health information
technology systems. She said whether they will produce savings is
still in question, since analyses are partially based on reducing
medical errors: If health IT isn’t designed or implemented well,
new medical errors and higher costs could result, she said.

Other witnesses told the Senate Commerce, Science and
Transportation Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation and
Competitiveness that the biggest obstacles preventing widespread
adoption of IT by the nation’s health care systems are
interoperability and the cost of obtaining it.

Clancy said HHS has funded more than 125 projects and
demonstrations to better understand how IT can improve the health
care system.

HHS’ American Health Information Community has contracted the
Certification Commission for Health Information Technology to
develop criteria and evaluation processes for certifying electronic
health records.

The department also has contracted four consortia of health care
and information technology organizations to develop prototype
architectures for the nationwide health IT network, Clancy
said.