HIMSS Electronic Health Record Vendors Association Response to Progressive Vision for Healthcare in State of the Union Address

CHICAGO – (February 3, 2005) – Speaking with a unified voice representing leading software firms, the HIMSS Electronic Health Records Vendors Association (EHRVA) strongly supports President Bush’s mandate for widespread adoption of healthcare information technology in clinical care. 

In this year’s State of the Union Address, President Bush asks Congress “to move forward on a comprehensive health-care agenda [including] a community health center in every poor county, improved information technology to prevent medical errors and needless costs.” The request comes on the heels of the President’s recent statements regarding benefits of electronic health records. It also aligns with a plan to direct $50 million to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) within 2005, and allocate $125 million to demonstration projects in the 2006 fiscal year.

President Bush has challenged former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson and his successor Mike Leavitt to achieve high EHR adoption within ten years. HIMSS EHRVA has participated in initiatives subsequently launched by Dr. David Brailer, National Coordinator for ONCHIT – an organization within HHS established to meet Bush’s healthcare IT goals. HIMSS EHRVA recently provided both a response and proposed framework to an ONCHIT call for input on the development of a National Health Information Network to support community healthcare (Federal Register: November 15, 2004, Volume 69, Number 219, pp. 65599-65601, DOCID:fr15no04-78).

HIMSS EHRVA is focused on accelerating EHR adoption for the benefit of patients, providers, payers, and suppliers. Its positions on these issues are consistent with the Bush administrations’ goals. Foremost on the HIMSS EHRVA agenda are matters of EHR Certification, solidifying technology standards to enable interoperability, and outreach to achieve collaboration between all stakeholders. The association will continue to advance essential EHR issues, and to support related government initiatives.

About HIMSS EHRVA

HIMSS EHRVA is a trade association of Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors addressing national efforts to accelerate EHR adoption in hospital and ambulatory care settings. The primary mission of the association is to provide a forum for the EHR vendor community relative to standards development, the EHR certification process, interoperability, performance and quality measures and other EHR issues as they become subject to increasing government, insurance and physician association initiatives and requests. Membership is open to HIMSS corporate members with legally formed companies designing, developing and marketing their own commercially available EHRs with installations in the USA.

The association, comprised of 24 member companies, is a partner of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and operates as an organizational unit within HIMSS. For more information, visit http://www.himssehrva.org.

Contact: Julia Zarb
Tel: 919.845.9100
julia@zarbconsulting.com