Prepared Statement of The Honorable Joe Barton

Health Information Technology: Improving Quality and Value of Patient Care

Subcommittee on Health
July 22, 2004

Thank you, Chairman Bilirakis, for holding this important hearing today. Medical science in recent years has produced tremendous discoveries that have revolutionized how we treat diseases and care for patients. Unfortunately, the medical records and information technologies needed to take advantage of these discoveries remain locked in an era where cutting edge technologies were slide rules and computers the size of this hearing room. We should be able to do better.

Physicians should not have to rely on bulky and often incomplete medical records. Pharmacists should not have to rely on handwritten and often illegible prescriptions. Most importantly, patients should not have to bear the increased risk of medical errors and pay the inflated costs that result from the use of antiquated health information systems. Other sectors of our economy have adopted the widespread use of electronic forms and records. So why hasn't the majority of the healthcare sector caught up? This is just one of the questions I hope this hearing will address.

President Bush has called for electronic health records for most Americans within 10 years. I applaud the President for issuing this challenge. It has been estimated that if most patient records were in electronic form the savings could amount to about $140 billion a year. The potential savings offered by technology is staggering and could go a long way towards slowing the tremendous growth in healthcare costs that we've seen over the years.

I would like to extend my thanks to the Secretary of HHS, Tommy Thompson, for appearing before the Committee today. Yesterday Secretary Thompson released the first outline of a 10-year plan to transform the delivery of health care by building a new health information infrastructure, including electronic health records and a new network to link health records nationwide. The system will enable physicians and other health professionals to electronically tap into a wealth of treatment information as they care for patients. The proper use of health information technology promotes knowledge and responsibility for health care decisions and helps them to be smarter consumers of healthcare.

In addition, Secretary Thompson has announced plans to create an Internet portal allowing beneficiaries to access their personal Medicare information. There are a number of other exciting new initiatives that we will learn about today. The Committee offers its support to these efforts and wants to work closely with the Administration on these efforts to help modernize the use of health information technology. I also appreciate Dr. Kolodner from the Department of Veterans Affairs for agreeing to testify. The VA has done extensive work in this area and I'm pleased that they could be here today to testify as to their experience using this technology.

We would do a disservice to all Americans if we ignored the benefits that health information technology can offer. This technology can transform our healthcare system and bring it into the 21st century, resulting in lower costs and greater quality of care. Once again, I thank Chairman Bilirakis for holding this hearing.

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