Senate panel examines health information exchange

The nation needs to make “rapid progress to develop secure systems for interoperability, not only to improve care and engage patients, but to support new models of care,” AHA today told members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. In a statement for a hearing held today examining the state of health information exchange efforts, AHA urged Congress and the administration to “create a policy environment that supports these efforts and accelerates the transition to the health care system of the future.” Specifically, AHA called for policy changes to give providers greater flexibility in deploying electronic health records, create the infrastructure for information exchange, and hold vendors accountable for designing and marketing safe and interoperable products. AHA also notedthat improving the infrastructure to support secure data sharing in support of clinical care can be accomplished within the existing HIPAA requirements and the existing framework of cybersecurity policy.