[SEC508] Invitation to a public meeting to gather public comments for planning an AHIC successor

["Baquis, David " <baquis@Access-Board.gov>]

Recently, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt said that if consumers are allowed to make healthcare decisions based on data gathered about quality and pricing through the use of electronic records, their decisions would be far more precise and would produce better healthcare at lower costs than is currently possible.

 

I would like to see the issue of accessibility of electronic health records and personal health records moved under the national spotlight.  This is complex since it involves multiple stakeholders such as hospitals and third-party payers. Obviously it involves companies that develop software for use in creating such records, as well as those individuals who create the content. And it raises challenges about how some visual information might be described.

 

I won’t go into detail about hardware and other interrelated technologies, but until you see a demonstration, you may not initially imagine what is possible. Many manufacturers could be impacted. For example, a mobile device could be used by patients to store healthcare data (e.g., blood glucose levels), which can then be uploaded into their home computer and shared via the Internet with a physician. Also, sensors can be used to send biometric information (e.g., cardiac arrhythmia) directly to healthcare centers to alert them of potential emergencies.

 

Some of you may know that this issue of making electronic health records available by the year 2014 is driven by the President. See: http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/healthcare/index.html#section11.   So far, most attention has been devoted toward other issues such as interoperability (of the records) and privacy, which are certainly important too.  

 

As you learn more about this, you will see that there is a new Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, which recently received a budget increase. See: http://www.hhs.gov/healthit/.  There is already a demonstration project for 1,200 physician practices to adopt certified electronic health record systems.  Of course, from our perspective, the trigger word “certification” raises more questions.

 

There has been a federal advisory panel called the American Health Information Community (AHIC) which I discovered did not consider accessibility issues. There will be a couple more public meetings (April 8^th and May 30^th) to plan a successor to that advisory panel and I encourage you to attend these forums, either in-person (in Washington, DC) or by teleconference. See: http://www.ahicsuccessor.org/hhs/ahic.nsf/meetings.htm.  This will be an independent and sustainable public-private partnership. The president's plan calls for AHIC to continue developing health data standards. FYI, I recently joined the HITSP (Health Information Technology Standards Panel), which is an ANSI SDO (standards development organization): http://www.ansi.org/standards_activities/standards_boards_panels/hisb/hitsp.aspx?menuid=3.

 

David Baquis

Accessibility Specialist

U.S. Access Board

1331 F Street, NW,  #1000

Washington, DC 20004

800-USA-ABLE; (202) 272-0013 (voice)

www.access-board.gov; baquis@access-board.gov       “Get decisive. Get excited. Get going!”