The task force also recommends several actions to promote the use of electronic tools to improve patient-provider communication, coordinate care, expand access and empower individuals to manage their health and healthcare. They include expanding considerably upon the current consumer awareness campaign; educating and supporting providers in the adoption of electronic tools to support patient engagement; and making tools widely available so that patients can easily download health information from their provider’s EHR into their own personal health record.

The task force also recognizes that it is necessary to issue consistent, comprehensive and clear guidance on federal privacy and security laws covering personal health information and calls for consistent protection of personal health information.

Additionally, it calls for an expansion of education and implementation assistance programs to help providers achieve meaningful use – with a particular focus on small physician practices and community hospitals and clinics that deliver care to rural and underserved populations.

Finally, the task force recommends further alignment of health IT requirements across federal health are programs so that common health IT solutions can meet the multiple needs of programs supporting delivery system transformation, payment, public health, coverage and access, and administrative improvement. The task force urges coordination of quality measurement programs and alignment of measurement specifications with federally adopted data standards.

“Coordinated, accountable, patient-centered models of care—previously implemented by only a handful of high-performing organizations – are poised for more widespread adoption,” said Janet Marchibroda, Chair of BPC’s Health IT Initiative. “Health IT not only plays a critical role in the success of these organizations, it also enables the rapid spread of the very functions that have made these models successful, to the rest of the U.S. healthcare system.”

For a list of task force members, see next page.