Members of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) stormed Capitol Hill Sept. 15 in an effort to raise awareness of the importance of healthcare IT among federal lawmakers.

HIMSS representatives from all over the country rallied at the tenth annual HIMSS Policy Summit in preparation for meeting with their senators and representatives. The meeting was held at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill as part of National Health IT Week.

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HIMSS’ mantra is “one voice, one vision.”

“With adequate knowledge and the right resources, we can work together to verbalize one voice with one vision, bettering our healthcare system through the use of health information technology,” said HIMSS leaders.

This year, HIMSS members will ask Congress for three requests:

• To improve the quality of healthcare while also reducing its costs, such as through elimination of duplicative care, Congress should continue its strong bipartisan support for health information technology.
• Congress should preserve the investment being made in the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records Meaningful Use Incentive Program as an essential tool that is critical to the healthcare transformation process.
• In order to ensure that the right person getting the right healthcare at the right time, Congress should support the development of a nationwide patient identity solution by lifting the current statutory prohibition to allow HHS to address this issue along with other health IT policy enhancements.

Rep. Mike Burgess, MD (R-Texas) gave a keynote speech at the summit, followed by a luncheon before HIMSS members hit Capitol Hill.

Burgess said that when he came to Congress in 2003, he was not the biggest proponent of health IT – but events after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 changed his mind “in a big way.”

At a field hearing post-Katrina in New Orleans, Burgess said he saw “row after row” of paper records at Charity Hospital turned black from mold. Hazmat protection was required to touch the destroyed documents.

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A few days after the hurricane, Burgess assisted other doctors in the Dallas Arena in treating victims of the hurricane. Many were in no condition to remember any of their medical history or the medications they were taking, he said. Walgreens was there with computers loaded on a truck, assisting victims who had used Walgreens as a pharmacy. They were able to look up prescription records electronically to get some of a patient’s medical history. “These were powerful images,” said Burgess.

Since then, Burgess has carried the torch for electronic health records. He has co-sponsored a bill to extend HITECH incentives to multi-campus hospitals. It has been “a tough year,” he said, for getting Congress to spend time on healthcare IT, “but it’s coming along.”

The HIMSS policy summit follows a jam-packed week of healthcare IT advocacy activity, including a presidential decree to make this week in Sept. National Health IT Week.

Follow Diana Manos on Twitter @DManos_IT_News