The Public Sector HealthCare Roundtable on Sept. 14 urged lawmakers to move ahead with health information technology (IT) legislation that has the potential of improving patient care and saving more than $80 billion a year.

Efforts to digitize medical records is one of the few subjects in the contentious health care debate that has broad support from all sides. The Roundtable, in a letter to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and 12 other key lawmakers, urged lawmakers to take advantage of this consensus.

"Unfortunately, much of today's health care system has remained relatively untouched by the technological innovations which have benefited other industries, leaving a health system where patient records and prescription needs remain predominantly maintained in paper files," the letter noted. "Without a system of data standardization among providers, the ability of participants in the system to effectively share data will continue to be difficult if not impossible to achieve. This fragmentation wastes time, money, and results in lives lost to treatment errors. According to some studies, the widespread adoption of health IT could save more than $81 billion a year in healthcare costs as well as greatly improve the overall quality of patient care."

The Roundtable singled out two specific pieces of legislation it said should be acted upon before Congress adjourns: H.R. 4157, the "Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2006," sponsored by Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., and S. 1418, the "Wired for Health Care Quality Act," sponsored by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. Both bills have passed the chamber in which they were introduced but have stalled, and the Roundtable, in its letter, asked congressional leaders to appoint conferees "expeditiously" to produce a compromise version of the bills that can be sent to President Bush this year.

In addition to Speaker Hastert and Sen. Frist, the Roundtable letter was sent to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. Enzi, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., Rep. Charles Rangel, D-Calif., Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.

A group of centrist Democrats sent a similar letter to House and Senate leaders during the last week of September, asking for the appointment of conferees for H.R. 4157 and S. 1418 and noting that, "America's healthcare system is overly reliant on paper-based prescription and record keeping techniques that are expensive, inefficient, and even fatal." The letter from the New Democrat Coalition included the signatures of California Reps. Linda Tauscher - the group's chair - Loretta Sanchez and Adam Schiff.