WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman David Wu today announced that Oregon is getting ready to secure stimulus funds for the development and deployment of health information technology (IT).  States will have the opportunity to obtain funding for health IT in their communities by submitting competitive grant proposals to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“While electronic medical records are a relatively new focus at the national level, the state of Oregon has been at the forefront of health IT development for years,” said Congressman Wu.  “I have been collaborating with many health IT stakeholders in Oregon, including government, private sector, and academic leaders, since 2005.  As a result of our collective hard work over many years, Oregon is in a strong position to access and act upon this funding.”

This morning Congressman David Wu participated in a roundtable forum for healthcare stakeholders convened by IBM.  During the forum, the congressman said that the development of health IT is a necessary first step in helping improve health care.  As Congress takes up health care reform this summer, he has called on congressional leaders to provide additional support for health IT adoption by independent physicians and medical providers, who face disproportionate costs to implement health IT.

“Small medical practices have higher initial costs to set up health IT systems because they can’t share the expense across a large health care network,” said Wu.  “We must establish a system that encourages health IT adoption by those at all size medical practices, using mechanisms like reimbursement rate increases to smooth out the costs of health IT deployment.  Only once we have across-the-board use will we be able to see the true benefits of health IT.”

Health IT is a necessary starting point for building smarter health care systems. The application of private, secure and interoperable health care technologies will help patients, doctors, and insurers navigate and collect each person’s medical history, test results, prescriptions, and other disparate pieces of medical information.  Electronic health care records will also help reduce medical errors, saving the lives of thousands of Americans, and provide aggregated data that can be used to better diagnose and treat a variety of illnesses.

"IBM has 450,000 reasons — namely IBM’s employees and their families — why health care reform is important to us,” said IBM Oregon Senior State Executive Rick Warren. “Our employee wellness programs already provide incentives for employees in Oregon and around the United States to adopt healthier practices. IBM also supports and values the expansion of health care IT as another important way to help reduce health care costs while contributing to a smarter health care system. We hosted today’s event to help accelerate that process and keep Oregon on the road toward health care reform and greater affordability."

Attending today’s health care forum were other leading health care, technology, and employee stakeholders including representatives from Oregon Community Health Information Network (OCHIN), Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Oregon Institute of Technology, Intel, Kryptiq, Oregon Healthcare Workforce Institute, Oregon Health Fund, Oregon Health Network, Acumentra Health, ODS, Providence Health Systems, Office of Governor Ted Kulongoski, Office of Oregon Health Policy and Research, and Kaiser Permanente.

“Due to the work of Congressman Wu and stakeholders across the state, Oregon can leverage significant investments made in health IT to date,” said Dawn Bonder, senior health IT policy adviser to the governor. “Oregon’s track-record of innovation places us in an excellent position to maximize federal investments made through stimulus funding."
 
"There is a deep sense of excitement and hope in Oregon regarding the benefits that health information technology can bring to people in our state." said Dr. Jody Pettit, physician and health information technology advisor, "The ARRA funding will provide a much needed boost to the many projects underway to ensure that Oregonians have their health information available to them when they need it.  We also expect to see new projects and innovation that will help clinicians and patients. We can't move fast enough."

Earlier this year, Congress approved and President Barack Obama signed into law a significant commitment to the development of health IT as part of the economic recovery package, otherwise known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  The commitment included approximately $18 billion for incentives and $2 billion for workforce training, standards development, and other technical activities.  The workforce training provisions were based on Congressman Wu’s legislation to train more workers for available jobs in health IT.

The U.S House of Representatives is currently expected to vote on health care reform legislation in late July 2009.