BETHESDA, Md., July 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading members of the American Medical Informatics Association visited Congress today, to urge passage of legislation to support further development of the National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII). NHII is an initiative with the overall goal of improving the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of health care in the United States through the use of information technology.
"We have made an impressive start on this project that will deliver enormous benefits to the American public and the health care community. It is imperative that Congress now turns its attention to creating an environment where information technology in health care can deliver on its promise," said Charles Safran, MD, President of AMIA. Specifically, AMIA is calling on Congress to support the standardization of health care information exchanges. "An ATM machine in San Francisco can communicate with my bank in Boston. But when my wife goes from her primary care doctor's office in the suburbs to a downtown teaching hospital in Boston, her physicians cannot use information technology to access information that might be critical to her care and safety. That has to change."
AMIA members will also urge Congress to support programs to promote the use of health information technology by health care providers. These programs might include electronic prescribing and electronic decision support systems, and increased reimbursement for users of electronic medical records, clinical decision support systems, and other health information technology. "The technology is just one element that is needed to make this initiative a reality," said Dr. Safran. "We also need to create an environment in the provider community that will actively support its success."
AMIA members have been instrumental to date in guiding the NHII development: the initiative grew out of the 2001 AMIA Spring Congress, "Developing a Framework for the National Health Information Infrastructure," and was further detailed in "A Consensus Action Agenda for Achieving the National Health Information Infrastructure" in the July/August 2004 Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. That article stated, "The set of organizing principles, systems, standards, procedures and policies needed to achieve this vision, known as the NHII, would allow care providers to concentrate their efforts on applying judgment and experience to the clinical problem at hand based on complete information, rather than depending on potentially fallible memory applied to incomplete patient data."
AMIA is the premier organization in the United States dedicated to the development and application of medical informatics in the support of patient care, teaching, research, and health care administration. Complete information about AMIA is available at: http://www.amia.org/.
CONTACT: Mary Ellen Doran of American Medical Informatics Association, +1-202-390-8831, or maryellen@mail.amia.org.
American Medical Informatics AssociationCONTACT: Mary Ellen Doran of American Medical Informatics Association,+1-202-390-8831, or maryellen@mail.amia.org
Web site: http://www.amia.org/
