Healthcare Summit Shows Information Technology Nears Tipping Point
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Louise Arnheim |
October 21, 2004 |
New eHI Award Announced as Top Healthcare Leaders Gather
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The first Health Information Technology Summit targeting the diverse and multiple stakeholders now exploring health information technology (HIT) opened today with clear signs that America’s healthcare system is now nearing the tipping point in relation to the adoption of information technology to support clinical care. Sponsored by the eHealth Initiative (eHI) – an independent, Washington D.C. -based, nonprofit multi-stakeholder organization whose mission is to improve health and healthcare through information and information technology – the inaugural HIT Summit began today with announcement of a new award honoring leadership in healthcare related to HIT.
Welcoming an audience of over 800, eHI Board President Herbert Pardes, MD, Chief Executive Officer, New York-Presbyterian Hospital announced creation of the eHI Tipping Point Award (sm). Inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s famous book on social change, The Tipping Point, the award will be given to the person who, through nomination and voting of his/her peers, has done the most to move the healthcare system toward this tipping point. The first award will be announced in spring 2005.
“The past year has been a watershed for policies and actions aimed at spurring healthcare IT,” said Pardes. “We’re rapidly reaching that critical, exciting moment in healthcare when everyone – physicians, hospital systems, health plans, large purchasers, government leaders, and even patients – ‘get’ IT. I can’t think of a better way to honor achievement in our field.”
Later in the morning, Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) discussed AHRQ’s $139 million HIT portfolio, including the National Health Information Technology Research Center announced last week by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. Based at AHRQ, the new repository will aid grantees and other Federal partners by providing technical assistance, provide a focus for collaboration, serve as a repository for best practices, and disseminate needed tools to help providers explore the adoption and use of health information technology to improve patient safety and quality of care (see http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2004/hhshitpr.htm).
Performing the work will be a unique partnership of organizations led by the National Opinion Resource Center at the University of Chicago and including the eHealth Initiative Foundation, Indiana University’s Regenstrief Institute, the Center for Information Technology Leadership (CITL), the Vanderbilt Center for Better Health, and the Computer Sciences Corporation.
This week’s Summit is the nation’s first such conference to bring together healthcare constituencies generally not used to thinking about information technology with thought leaders who have paved the way for its implementation. The diversity of groups represented is reflected in the long list of Summit cosponsors that includes organizations such as the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, the American Medical Association, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Bridges to Excellence, Federation of American Hospitals, and the National Business Coalition on Health (see www.HITsummit.com).
Further, concurrent breakout sessions scheduled for Friday, October 22nd and the morning of Saturday, October 23rd, are divided into the following stakeholder tracks: employers and business coalitions; health plans; physicians and physician organizations; hospital and health systems; community-based collaborations; public health; and pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device manufacturers. Over 150 speakers – including policy-makers, senior executives, national thought leaders and pioneering practitioners from every sector healthcare will participate in these sessions.
“Clearly, this is not your typical, everyday IT conference,” said Janet Marchibroda, Chief Executive Officer of the eHealth Initiative and Executive Director of its Foundation. “It’s so exciting to have the best and brightest from our country and other nations taking part in this landmark event. We truly are on the verge of great change. It’s no longer a question of whether we should implement information technology, but how will we do so in the most effective way.”
The morning proceedings also included a keynote address by National Health Information Technology Coordinator, David Brailer, MD, PhD; Richard Granger, Director General, Information Technology, National Health Service, United Kingdom and a Congressional Roundtable looking at HIT legislative prospects for 2005. Friday’s lineup will feature Mark B. McClellan, MD, Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The three-day conference adjourns at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 23rd.
The eHealth Initiative and the Foundation for eHealth Initiative are independent, non-profit affiliated organizations whose missions are the same: to drive improvement in the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare through information and information technology. For more information on the eHealth Initiative and the Foundation for eHealth Initiative, go to www.ehealthinitiative.org.
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