At a press briefing hosted June 15 by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), industry leaders gave a thumbs up for healthcare IT advancement over the past year and offered encouragement for achieving "lofty goals."

The briefing was part of the Fifth Annual National Health IT Week, supported by 170 organizations and held June 14-18 in Washington, DC.

Neal Neuberger, executive director for the Institute for e-Health Policy, and president of Health Tech Strategies, LLC, said he was pleased with the progress, but warned efforts to advance healthcare IT must come from the ground up. States, localities and organizations such as the Regional Extension Centers will provide the needed push to make it work, he said.

Collaborations of organizations, stakeholders and vendors will be critical to getting the kind of healthcare IT adoption anticipated under the HITECH provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Neuberger said.

"The whole effort, now, will be to reach all these organizations in a timely fashion," he said. Rural and minority communities are a particular concern, he added.

Speaking on behalf of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), David Muntz, senior vice president and CIO of Baylor Health Care System in Dallas said, "So much has happened since we met for National Health Information Technology Week just 9 months ago."

The HITECH Act and healthcare reform legislation have helped lay down the foundation for "dramatically improving" healthcare delivery, he said.

"But, why the focus on healthcare information technology? Because, the proper use of healthcare information technology will allow the U.S. to achieve its appropriately lofty goals."

Earlier, HIMSS had anticipated Reps. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.)and Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.) would speak at the briefing, but the Gulf oil spill called for their immediate attention on Capitol Hill.

In a statement prior to the briefing, Kennedy, who is co-chair of the 21st Century Health Care Caucus, said he has long advocated for the adoption of electronic health records as an efficient means to lower healthcare costs and reduce medical errors.

"Increased adoption of health information technology will help ensure that all Americans are receiving the highest quality healthcare our nation has to offer," Kennedy said.