New York Health Commissioner Richard Daines on Wednesday announced the launch of a statewide health IT program, which will include an initial $106 million investment to help health care facilities adopt IT tools in 2007 and 2008, Government Technology reports.
The IT program -- part of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's (D) "Patients First" health care agenda -- will help make patients' medical records portable and establish an infrastructure to support clinicians in quality-based reimbursement programs.
Daines also requested that the new state Office of Health Information Technology Transformation and the not-for-profit New York eHealth Collaborative coordinate health IT program and policy collaborations across public and private sectors.
The key objectives to drive the investment in IT include:
- Ensuring that patients' health information remains private and secure, while supporting patients' control over the personal health records;
- Offering cost and quality information on payers and providers so consumers can make more informed decisions;
- Using IT to improve the management of chronic diseases, community-based long-term care, public health surveillance and a certificate-of-need process;
- Preparing for emergencies by allowing for the exchange of health information, including medications and lab test results; and
- Increasing the use of telemedicine, remote monitoring devices and other applications to help clinicians and providers in rural and underserved areas.
The plan for adopting an interoperable health information infrastructure will be submitted to Daines within 90 days and will be available on the health department's
Web site. The plan will be updated regularly.
The statewide health IT program also will create a coordinating council to integrate health-related state agencies and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The council's first objective will be to align information systems for immunization registries, lead and newborn screening, and other records to aid the improvement of children's health,
Government Technology reports.
Later this summer the health department will offer a new request for proposals to distribute the $106 million and to rebid proposals from 2006 to grant $53 million for health IT projects under the third phase of the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers.
Daines said that taxpayers "will be better served by a rebid that will help us achieve a seamless health information exchange capability that has strong protections for patient privacy" (
Government Technology, 8/8).