Accelerating Progress: Using Health Information Technology and Electronic Health Information Exchange to Improve Care

With the national dialogue on health care reaching epidemic levels, a distinguished group of bipartisan health policy and technical experts today released a report calling for accelerating adoption and use of health information technology (HIT) and electronic health information exchange (HIE) to speed improvements in the U.S. health care system.

In their inaugural report, Accelerating Progress: Using Health Information Technology and Electronic Health Information Exchange to Improve Care, the State Alliance for e-Health (State Alliance), a consensus-based, executive-level body composed of governors, state legislators, attorney generals and state commissioners, examines the challenges states face in implementing HIT and HIE, including provider concerns about implementation costs, variations in technical standards for interoperability and consumer concerns about data privacy and security.  The report is meant to spur continued innovation in states to make the vision of an interconnected, efficient, quality-based health care system – and ultimately a healthier American public – a reality.

The State Alliance specifically highlights e-prescribing and consumer privacy as critical to advancing e-Health in America and encourages states to be proactive in creating and implementing policies that advance these and other e-health initiatives. Taken together, these improvements have the promise of transforming health care in the United States. E-prescribing is cited as a landmark gateway to stimulating other advances in e-health, but progress in this and other e-health areas must move simultaneously with increased scrutiny and attention to protect the privacy of consumers' health information.