WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today Congressman David Wu announced the passage of his health care information technology (IT) legislation as part of the economic recovery package.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, H.R. 1, includes Congressman Wu’s provisions to train workers for well-paying jobs that will help modernize and improve health care.

"After years of effort, my legislation to train more workers in the field of health information technology was finally signed in to law as part of President Obama's economic recovery package," said Congressman Wu.  "This is good news for our health care system, and especially good news here in Oregon, where we have some of the premiere health IT experts and training programs in the country."   

The economic recovery package allocates nearly $20 billion to improve the computerization of health care.  Of that, $2 billion is set aside for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, which will spend a portion of the funds on workforce training.

"It is rare for legislation to be both authorized and funded in one fell swoop, so I'm very pleased that that's what happened here," said Congressman Wu.  "In Oregon, we have national leaders working in all areas of health IT, and the state is home to institutions of higher education that are developing the curriculum necessary to create a highly skilled health IT workforce and train current health care professionals in the latest technology.  Health IT is a ready-made economic stimulus that will be especially effective here in Oregon."

Congressman Wu first introduced health IT workforce training legislation in 2006 after holding numerous meetings in Oregon's 1st Congressional District, including a committee field hearing and roundtable discussions with leaders from academia and the public and private sectors.  Called the 10,000 Trained by 2010 Act, Wu's legislation passed the House of Representatives in 2007, but did not receive further action before it was recently reintroduced and then included in the economic recovery legislation.

“David Wu has led the way in bringing the need for more health information technology workers to the attention of Congress and the country,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  “Thanks to David’s dedication, the landmark economic recovery legislation that President Obama just signed into law includes significant funding to train or retrain workers for well-paying jobs in the growing field of health IT.  By increasing the number of health IT workers, we will improve our health care system, help reduce deaths from medical errors, and put more Americans back to work.”

Despite daily news of job losses across the country, there is a dramatic shortage of workers in the specialized field of health IT.  In contrast with many other sectors of the economy, jobs already exist in the field of health IT; we just lack qualified workers.  Without the workers to build, implement, and maintain health IT systems, we face a barrier to widespread implementation.

"Although the primary goal of using this technology is to improve human health, health care, public health, and biomedical research, we cannot lose sight of the high-skill, high-paying jobs that its implementation provides," said Dr. William Hersh, chair of the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology at the Oregon Health & Science University's (OHSU) School of Medicine.  "Research that we have done at OHSU shows that as we implement more advanced health IT systems, there will be a need for an additional 40,000 IT personnel in hospitals alone.  When you add in clinics, vendors, and others, the number of available jobs may be as high as 200,000."

In order to better use health IT, a well-trained health IT workforce is required.  Without people trained to be experts in both information technology and health care, the result will be unusable health IT systems—the proverbial 'black box' that sits on a desk unused.  

"For over 20 years the healthcare industry has lagged just about every other industry in information technology use," said Luis Machuca, president and CEO of Kryptiq Corporation, a leading provider of interoperability and workflow connectivity solutions for healthcare.  "It is not a coincidence that over the same period costs, premiums, medical errors, and frustration have been steadily going up. Doctors, insurance companies, employers, and patients are being pushed to the financial brink.  The health IT workforce program led by Congressman Wu is a critical step forward to reverse this trend.

"Indeed over the last 20 years we have not been lacking in technology—we have been lacking in the understanding of technology," Machuca continued.  "Without a trained health IT workforce we would end up replacing a paper folder with an electronic folder that is just as hard to access and in many ways as unproductive as the paper it seeks to replace."

The introduction of new, innovative information technology to the health care system has the potential to not only bring greater efficiency and cost savings to health care, but also to improve both the patient experience and the practice environment for health care providers.  Most importantly, health IT can save lives by reducing the estimated 98,000 annual American deaths related to medical errors.  

"An important thing to remember about information technology is that it's not about the technology—it's about the information," said Dr. Jody Pettit, strategic work group leader in the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology's Personal Health Record Certification Development Program.  "I have practiced in Portland now for almost 14 years and I can promise you that today, people all across Oregon are getting medical care from a provider who—through no fault of his or her own—has incomplete medical records for that patient.  Advances in health IT will help us move quickly past the currently time-consuming process of requesting medical records, and let us dedicate more thought to diagnoses and treatments."

The investments in health IT will benefit Oregonians and the rest of the country in both the short- and long-term. The health IT funds in the economic recovery package are both a timely commitment to training people for stable, essential jobs and a strong investment in the future health of our economy.