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Leavitt speech highlights AHIC accomplishments

EHR Connection, February 4, 2008

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt commended members of the American Health Information Community (AHIC) for their hard work during the past two years at the group's nineteenth meeting held January 22 in Washington, D.C.

"We shared a vision, and a basic understanding of the barriers to that vision," Leavitt told the audience as he recalled AHIC's inception two years ago. "The premise for establishing AHIC was that information technology can help us manage health care better than paper."

Leavitt said AHIC's accomplishments have included the following:

• Establishing an organizational infrastructure consisting of work groups and nonprofit organizations to further AHIC goals
• Harmonizing dozens of standards so that 34 officially recognized interoperability standards lay a foundation for standards-based health information exchange
• Certifying approximately 75% of the outpatient EHR products being used by physicians
• Launching Nationwide Health Information Network trial implementations to demonstrate possible configurations for secure interoperability
• Established a new Medicare demonstration program that will provide incentives for small to mid-sized physician practices to adopt interoperable EHRs

"We've thought about ways consumers could be empowered to manage their health information and make better health choices for themselves," Leavitt told the group. "We've thought about tools that could help providers deliver safer care that is more responsive to individuals' needs. And we've thought about ways we can have those things while improving incentives to reverse unsustainable cost trends."

Click here to read the full text of Leavitt's speech.

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