BY EMAIL
The Honorable Anna Eshoo
U.S. House of Representatives
205 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Mike Rogers
U.S. House of Representatives
133 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Congresswoman Eshoo and Congressman Rogers:
On behalf of Business Roundtable, I write in support of H.R. 3800, the Promotion of Health Information Technology (HIT) Act. Business Roundtable strongly supports enactment of health IT legislation this year and your bill represents an excellent step toward this goal.
Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with $4.5 trillion in annual revenues and more than 10 million employees. Member companies provide health care coverage to approximately 35 million Americans.
We believe that a nationwide, interoperable health information system will help drive efficiencies that other sectors of our economy have already achieved. It will facilitate three major improvements in the health care system: 1) reduce administrative costs in areas such as claims processing, provider reimbursement, referrals and eligibility; 2) improve health care quality, efficiency and care coordination; and 3) transform systems to improve patient safety. According to a recent Rand study, $165 billion could be saved in our health care system annually by adopting health IT. This would not only improve the healthcare of all Americans, but also strengthen our economy.
Legal authority is necessary in order to create a nationwide, interoperable health information infrastructure. This legislation has four major components: a timetable for firm implementation; establishment of uniform, interoperable standards for technology to support electronic transmission and maintenance of health information; loans and/or grants to providers/suppliers/health plans to assist in the purchase of such technology, and; the release of the “federal” information (i.e., Medicare database) to support efforts to disclose cost and quality information to consumers.
We applaud your leadership on this critical issue and look forward to working with you to move the legislation forward. With the adoption of a national, uniform, interoperable health information infrastructure, the nation will take an important step forward to greatly improve our health care system. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Maria Ghazal at Business Roundtable at (202) 872-1260.
Sincerely,
John Castellani