Published: 2009-07-07 11:47:29
Author: Steven Kraus | Dynamic Chiropractic | July 15, 2009
This spring, I traveled extensively to Washington, D.C., for a variety of reasons, mainly to advocate on behalf of chiropractic physicians as our government initiates massive health care reform efforts.
I attended the HL-7 Conference, which is an invitation-only gathering of health care officials dedicated to setting the programming standards for health information exchanges (HIEs) and standards for required data for electronic health records (EHRs).
The conference, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, has historically been limited to hospital and allopathic audiences. This year's group was expanded for the first time to include other health care experts, and I was the designee from the chiropractic profession. My goal and commitment to the profession remains clear: I want to ensure that the interests of chiropractic physicians are considered in any and all discussions related to policy-making for health care information technology. And in the case of HL-7, chiropractic participation is critical so the concerns of our profession with regard to the development of HIEs will be heard.
The catalyst for broadening this conference audience was presumably the economic stimulus package, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which includes more than $19 billion to fund the introduction of electronic health records in every physician office in America. The section of the ARRA that deals specifically with this appropriation is the HITECH Act, which outlines the requirements for funding eligibility. To be qualified for incentive payments offered through the legislation, doctors must adopt qualified EHRs that have the functionality to communicate with HIEs, making the standards by which HIEs are governed extremely important and elevating the prominence of interfacing capabilities with other systems.
I'll discuss more about the requirements for incentive payments later in this article, but the main reason I share my involvement with the creation of health care information technology standards is to demonstrate how the general health care industry is finally opening its arms to the chiropractic profession. We've been dancing on the periphery for years, but finally, we are gaining recognition as an essential component of health care delivery and actively participating in these important discussions regarding policy, standards and reform.
Reform = Collaboration + Technology
Speaking of reform, during that same visit to D.C., I also met with Sen. Tom Harkin's staffers as well as government relations personnel from the American Chiropractic Association to discuss the evolving model of reform for our health care system. As I shared in a previous column, elements of several models are under considerationincluding the Medical Home Model, which relies heavily on collaboration among health care professionals in order to improve the quality of patient care. Harkin and several of his colleagues are outlining a comprehensive national health care reform plan we can expect to be introduced later this year.
The cornerstone of that plan will be collaboration, and the framework to support collaboration will be driven by technology. While many uncertainties still remain, these two elements are certain. And with collaboration at the forefront, Harkin and others understand that chiropractic physicians and other nonmedical providers are an integral element of national reform. The reform movement is committed to supporting true wellness, something doctors of chiropractic have been preaching for years.
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