WASHINGTON, DC –U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) today joined a bipartisan group of Senators in cosponsoring and voting for the "Wired for Health Care Quality Act,"which lays the foundation for cutting-edge health information technology to improve health care. The bill was approved unanimously by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee now goes to the full Senate for a vote.

"This landmark legislation will improve patient care, reduce medical errors, and make health care more efficient," Senator Roberts said. "We believe that eventually this will enable all Americans going to the doctor’s office or hospital for medical care to instantly have their patient data, insurance or medical history available without the hassle of tracking down paper records from other providers."

The "Wired for Health Care Quality Act," S. 1693, introduced by Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), creates an Office of National Health Information Technology within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop a nationwide interoperable health information technology (IT) infrastructure. Under this office, an American Health Information Collaborative (AHIC) is created to provide recommendations on developing this infrastructure. In addition, a public-private partnership known as the Partnership for Health Care Improvement will provide recommendations on the technical aspects of interoperability, standards, implementation specifications and certification criteria for the exchange of health information. In order to protect patient privacy, the bill requires that the national strategy on health IT include strong privacy protections, including methods to notify patients if their medical information is wrongfully disclosed.

The bill also creates four separate grant programs:

• Grants to health care providers to facilitate the purchase and enhance the utilization of health IT;
• Grants to states in order for states to create loan programs for health care providers to purchase health IT;
• Grants to entities or consortia to implement regional or local health information plans to improve efficiency through the electronic exchange of information;
• Grants to integrate information technology into clinical education - these grants will go to health professions schools, schools of nursing, or graduate medical education programs.

"The initiative will lay the foundation for technology and information sharing among doctors, hospitals, and insurers," Senator Roberts said. "Health Information Technology is the wave of the future and physicians and providers must be able to embrace it. However, there are barriers to the adoption of nationwide health IT, especially in our rural areas. This bill reduces those barriers and gets health information technology into the hands of local providers, which only improves health care for all Kansans."

Senator Roberts is a senior member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the Senate Committee on Finance.