The Obama administration is seeking input from the public on how we can use health IT to help reform our health care system, provide higher quality, more effective patient centered care that helps to eliminate disparities. They have even created 2 Federal advisory task forces with online blogs but very few people are giving them feed-back on the somewhat arcane Health IT policy committee blog. Aneesh Chopra the White House CTO heads up the work group and they read the blog so please help spread the word and participate.
Get involved in the 3 open questions on the blog.
or go directly to each one of them below.
Share your comments on better patient and family engagement and using health IT for managing health care.
The meaningful use of patient-facing e-health applications has great potential to improve the quality and efficiency of health and health care. Particularly for people with chronic conditions, research demonstrates that patient activation, chronic care self-management, and shared decision making with their clinicians can have a substantial impact on effectively managing their health.
Using Health IT to bring eligibility determination and enrollment in health and human services programs into the 21st century Comment Now
In January 2010, at the White House Forum on Modernizing Government, President Obama noted that, "Improving the technology our government uses isn’t about having the fanciest bells and whistles on our websites – it’s about how we use the American people’s hard-earned tax dollars to make government work better for them." Now, six months later, the newly formed Enrollment Workgroup of the Health IT Policy and Standards Committees has begun the discussion of how to bring eligibility determination and enrollment in health and human services programs into the 21st century.
What we critically need—and what these standards have the promise to support—is an eligibility and enrollment system that will make applying for health insurance and other human service programs as easy as using the Internet to pay your bills or file your income taxes. It should be possible to apply for programs online, easily obtain the documents and information needed to confirm eligibility, and re-use this information to apply for a variety of programs, and re-certify your eligibility when the time comes. We need your help to uncover the examples, insights and best practices that will make this effort successful.
Share your comments on using health IT to eliminate disparities.
The meaningful use (MU) of electronic health records (EHRs) has great potential to improve the quality, efficiency and safety of health care. If we are not careful, however, benefits may disproportionately accrue to those best positioned to implement and use new technologies. That could have the unintended consequence of growing health, health care and health information disparities.