Keywords
Citation
(2003), "USA. New initiatives in promoting paperless health-care system", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 16 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2003.06216gab.006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
USA. New initiatives in promoting paperless health-care system
USA
New initiatives in promoting paperless health-care system
Keywords: DHHS, information technology, Electronic medical records, College of American Pathologists (CAP), Institute of Medicine, USA
In July, two new initiatives were announced by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as part of the DHHSs ongoing effort to develop the National Health information infrastructure by encouraging and facilitating the widespread use of modern information technology to improve the nation's health-caresystem. Secretary Thompson said:
"We want to build a standardized platform on which physicians' offices, insurance companies, hospitals and others can all communicate electronically, which will improve patient care, while reducing the medical errors and the high costs plaguing our health-care system."
First, the Department has signedan agreement with the College of American Pathologists (CAP) tolicense the College's standardized medical vocabulary system and make it available without charge throughout the USA. This will provide the ability to establish a common medical language, which is a key element in building a unified electronic medical records system in the USA.
The College's system has terms for more than 340,000 medical concepts, and has been recognised as the world's most comprehensive clinical terminology database available. The licensing agreement will make it possible for health-care providers, hospitals,insurance companies, public health departments, medical research facilities and others to easily incorporate this uniform terminology system into their information systems.
Second, the DHHS has commissioned the Institute of Medicine to design a standardized model of an electronic health record. The healthcare standards development organization, known as HL7, has been asked to evaluate the model once it has been designed. DHHS will share the standardized model record at no cost with all components of the US health-care system. The Department expects to have a model record ready in 2004.