ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS SAVE LIVES AND MONEY
By State Sens. Rob Wonderling and Connie Williams, chairs of the Senate Communications and Technology Committee

 Health care information technology saves money and saves lives.

 As Pennsylvania prepares for its very first observance of Health Care Information Technology Awareness Day on Monday, May 12^th, it is a good time to talk about how the latest technology is improving health care delivery by reducing medical errors and saving health care dollars.

 Across the United States, about $112 billion (or 7 percent of health care spending) could be saved annually just by utilizing electronic medical records, according to The Center for IT Leadership. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology conservatively estimates that annual savings due to widespread electronic health records adoption are likely to range between 7.5 percent and 30 percent of annual health care spending. Health care now consumes 17 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, by far the largest percentage of any nation in the world. More widespread use of electronic records also could help reduce the number of Americans (estimated at 98,000) who die each year from medical errors.

 About 17 percent of Pennsylvania hospitals report that most of their medical practitioners routinely use technology for such things as ordering medications. Technology also is being used to link rural and urban hospitals, and to streamline and improve health care delivery.

 On March 27^th, Governor Ed Rendell signed an executive order creating the Pennsylvania Health Information Exchange. This is the framework that will give health care providers improved access to clinical data, which in turn offers safer and more efficient patient-centered care.

 To understand the need for electronic health care records, consider that three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, some Americans in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region still do not have access to their medical records. In a crisis, very few American would have access to their medical records, including information about their prescriptions.

 The technology is available and safeguards are built into the systems to ensure patient confidentiality. This is good news for patients and for the medical community. The future of health care delivery is happening in hospitals and medical centers today. We hope that you will join with us in recognizing Monday, May 12^th as Pennsylvania Health Care Information Technology Awareness Day and thank the Pennsylvania branch of the Health Information Management Systems Society for its work in advancing patient care and the use of technology to improve health care delivery for everyone.