A physician from a small general medical practice in Saugerties, N.Y., is set to testify about his use of healthcare IT before the House Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Health Tuesday.

Eugene Heslin, MD, lead physician at Bridge Street Medical Group, will tell the committee what role federal incentives are likely to play in physician uptake of health information technology.

David Blumenthal, MD, the nation’s healthcare information technology coordinator, will also testify.

Beginning in October, billions in Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments will become available to healthcare providers who can demonstrate meaningful use of electronic health records.

Heslin has used electronic health records in his six-physician practice since 2006. In 2009, Bridge Street Medical Group was among 11 practices with 237 primary care physicians operating at 51 sites across New York's Hudson Valley that adopted the patient-centered medical home model and used health IT to support practice redesign to this new approach to care.

"I speak on behalf of my patients, representing their stake in health IT," Heslin said. "Ultimately, my patients are why meaningful use of health IT is important." 

Although financing and practice workflow redesign are challenges for small practices, he said the federal incentives "can help me persuade my colleagues that there is critical mass, that it is doable at the community level, and that they need to move now along the same pathway to benefit their patients and the community."

Heslin said that the time is now "to develop efficiencies and logic systems that allow us to rationalize care – to care for our patients using more intelligent tools, more efficiently - and not ration care. Meaningful use moves us in that direction."
 
As the Medicare population doubles over the next 20 years, the number of more complex patients will increase at the same time the number of primary care physicians is decreasing, he said.

Heslin is a founding board member of the Taconic Health Information Network and Community (THINC), the nonprofit, local convener of healthcare organizations designated as a local extension under the Federal Regional Extension Center (REC) program.

THINC is part of the Hudson Valley Initiative, which works collaboratively with Taconic IPA and MedAllies to support adoption of health IT in the Hudson Valley.

Heslin also serves on the board of New York's eHealth Collaborative, a public-private partnership for statewide health care stakeholders to collaborate on state and regional IT policy and implementation efforts, and is board chairman of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley, a hospital system that integrates two fee-for-service and one critical access facility.  He is a board-certified family practitioner and earned his medical degree from the University of Texas at Houston.