New Democrat coalition, New York City officials announce proposal for Federal health care IT program

Members of the New Democrat Coalition on Tuesday announced a proposal that would use a New York City health care information technology program as a legislative template for a federal program, CQ HealthBeat reports.

At a media conference on Capitol Hill, coalition members appeared with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden to discuss the proposal, which they said would improve health care quality, increase efficiency and reduce medical errors. Under the New York City program, about 200 primary care providers use electronic health records, and program officials hope to expand use of EHRs to 1,000 providers by the end of 2008.

The coalition seeks to nationalize interoperable health care IT and have 75% of providers use the technology by 2018. According to the coalition, the proposal involves three areas for implementation: infrastructure, which would include codification of the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology; standards; and finances. The proposal would require the first report to Congress of standards for public programs -- such as Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP -- by Jan. 1, 2010. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.), a coalition member, said that the proposal also would include privacy standards to address concerns about confidentiality often linked with the use of health care IT.

At the media conference, Bloomberg said that the proposal would mark the "largest of its kind in the nation." He said, "New York City is spending some $30 million in a public-private initiative to bring electronic health records to community health centers and doctors' offices serving more than one million patients." Bloomberg added, "We do think our system merits replication." Frieden said, "Done correctly, an electronic health record can be more secure than a paper record," adding, "You can document who's looked at it, when, what they've done, there's an audit trail for all of the steps, you can work with the practice to make sure they control passwords or access" (Grimaldi, CQ HealthBeat, 4/17).