Health Information Technology Plan Unveiled July 21

Secretary of Health and Human Services ("HHS") Tommy Thompson unveiled the report of Dr. David Brailer, the national health information technology coordinator, "Decade of Health Information Technology: Delivering Consumer-centric and Information-Rich Healthcare" at a Secretarial Summit on Health Information Technology ("HIT"). Within ten years, the ambitious public-private initiative will achieve four major goals: (1) promote electronic health records ("EHR") in clinical practice; (2) interconnect clinicians; (3) promote "consumer-centric" care; and (4) improve population health. The report listed options to examine to encourage implementation of EHRs. One of the possible options is to update federal physician self-referral and anti-kickback protections to encourage the development of interoperable HIT that "necessarily involves relationships among different providers."