THE SENATE

S.R. NO.

41

TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2005

S.D. 1

STATE OF HAWAII

 
   


SENATE RESOLUTION

 

Requesting the collaborative development of standards for electronic health and medical records management.

 

WHEREAS, the delivery of health care is becoming an increasingly complex process; and

WHEREAS, the need to computerize a health care system that is choking on paper is beyond dispute; and

WHEREAS, there is widespread agreement that the nation's hodgepodge of paper medical files needs to move into the digital era, so that eventually, each person has an electronic health record that can travel across networks and be read by doctors, hospitals, insurers, and the patients themselves; and

WHEREAS, health experts estimate that moving to electronic records, which would reduce paper handling and eliminate unnecessary or duplicative tests, could cut ten per cent or more from the nation's $1,700,000,000,000 a year in health care spending; and

WHEREAS, a digital medical information system could sharply reduce medical errors, which are estimated to be responsible for forty-five thousand to ninety-eight thousand deaths a year - more than breast cancer, AIDS, or motor vehicle accidents, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences; and

WHEREAS, the use of electronic patient records could also open the door to a national health information network in which patient information, stripped of personal identification, could be used for national health research projects, impartial assessments of drugs' effectiveness, and other data-mining possibilities; and

WHEREAS, although the health care industry is already rich in high technology when it comes to diagnosis, surgery, and treatment - from advanced body scanners to all manner of medical devices and drugs - in large part because those investments clearly generate revenue, in information management technology, the health care industry lags well behind most other industries; and

WHEREAS, in the health care industry, the average investment in information management technology computer hardware, software and services is only about $3,000 annually for each worker, compared with $7,000 a worker on average for private industry and nearly $15,000 a worker in banking; and

WHEREAS, health care remains a fragmented industry, and one major reason for this delay is the decentralized nature of health care delivery that relies on scores of physicians operating in solo or small group practices; and

WHEREAS, it is estimated that sixty per cent of medical practices are in offices with ten physicians or fewer and thirty-five per cent in offices with three physicians or fewer; and

WHEREAS, for these physicians, who essentially are small-businesses, information technology represents a daunting cost: $30,000 per physician to adopt electronic health record technology, according to a recent study, which factored in the cost of hardware, software, and time lost in terms of patients not seen while learning the system; and

WHEREAS, if basic standards for electronic health records are established, it will be less risky to invest in digital records for doctors or hospitals that may worry that the software they purchase today may become obsolete soon afterwards; and

WHEREAS, the federal government's Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is currently developing national interoperabiity standards for electronic health records; and

WHEREAS, in Hawaii, recent emerging initiatives involving the creation of a life sciences council, the new medical training facility for the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine in Kakaako, the heightened interest in biotechnology/life sciences business development in Hawaii, and the new medical technology developments that Hawaii hospitals and health care providers are embarking on provide an ideal environment to facilitate discussions on electronic health and medical records management; and

WHEREAS, an industry consortium should be convened to establish technical standards, which may be more flexible and open to future technical improvements than one determined by government edict; and

WHEREAS, such a consortium should enable and encourage technology executives to set aside their narrow corporate interests and give up some of their proprietary lock on customers to open up a larger market opportunity for everyone; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2005, that the Department of Health, the University of Hawaii, the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, the Hawaii Business Health Council, Hawaii Health Management Group, and the Hawaii Life Sciences Council are requested to convene a consortium to develop or encourage the use of basic standards to facilitate the proliferation of health record accessibility through electronic means; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the standards include a method to certify that the records can be opened and read by doctors and specialists, as authorized by the patient and that protect privacy, even when different users of the records system may have different computer operating systems; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that when developing or encouraging the use of these standards, the consortium should base the standards and applications on the most commonly used hardware and software technology available; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if national interoperability standards for electronic health records are developed, the consortium should adopt the national standards if the national standards are congruous with this State's needs and circumstances; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the consortium also identify the appropriate mixture of incentives to encourage physicians to embrace the use of electronic health and medical records; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the members of the consortium are requested to be drawn from:

(1) The University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine;

(2) The University of Hawaii School of Information and Computer Science;

(3) The Tripler Army Hospital;

(4) Large medical centers;

(5) Technology companies;

(6) Insurers;

(7) Physicians;

(8) Nonprofit groups and consultants; and

(9) Any other groups that the departments deem appropriate; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the consortium is requested to submit a report of its findings and recommendations to the Legislature not later than twenty days prior to the convening of the 2006 Regular Session; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Directors of Health and Business, Economic Development, and Tourism; the Deans of the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine and School of Information and Computer Science; the Hawaii Business Health Council; Hawaii Health Management Group; the Hawaii Life Sciences Council; the Commander of the Tripler Army Medical Center; The Queen's Medical Center; Hawaii Pacific Health; Kaiser Permanente; Hawaii Medical Service Association; and the Hawaii Independent Physicians Association.

Report Title:

Health Industry Electronic Information Management Consortium