Presidential commission pushes feds to 'facilitate' more health IT

A report by a presidential advisory panel urges the federal government to be more aggressive in facilitating the adoption of universal standards for sharing electronic health information and maintaining patient privacy. 

The Hill: Government Must Ease Exchange Of Health Information, President's Tech Report Says
The federal government must facilitate the widespread adoption of universal standards that will allow healthcare stakeholders to better share electronic health information and maintain patient privacy, according to a presidential advisory council report released Wednesday morning (Millman, 12/8). 

CQ HealthBeat: Health IT Council Urges Agencies To Push Providers Harder On Health IT
The federal government should be more aggressive in pushing hospitals and physicians to adopt electronic health record systems that can trade information with other providers rather than just store electronic information internally, said a report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that was released Wednesday. The 91-page report recommended 24 steps that federal agencies could take to spur the adoption of interoperable systems (Adams, 12/8). 

Meanwhile, Modern Healthcare: Confidence In Meaningful-Use Readiness Plunges
The percentage of chief information officers who are confident that their organizations will qualify by April 2011 for federal incentive payments for the purchase of electronic health-record systems plunged to 15%, down by nearly one-half from 28% of responding CIOs in a similar survey released in August, according to the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (Conn, 12/8).