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IOM Report 2003
IOM report on quality and patient safety recognized Elelctronic Health Records (EHRs) as a means to improve the quality of heathcare and patient safety. The awareness created by the IOM report about the poor quality of hrealthcare and a possible solution gave an impetus for the adoption of EHR. -
HIPAA security rule
HIPAA security rule provided national standards for the protection of personal health information that is handled electronically by a covered entity. It ensures that confidential and secure nature of EHRs is maintained and the integrity is preserved. -
President Bush's goal for 2014
In April 2004 President Bush announced the plan that all Americans have access to medical records by 2014. To implement this, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology was established. In July 2004, a frame of action was published which included plans to speed up the adoption process of EHRs. A time bound goal and plan of action helped to promote adoption of electronic health records across the country. -
HITSP
Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel was founded to establish partnership between public and private sectors to achieve interoperability of the EHR infrastructures. HITSP's contract with US Health and Human services ended on April 2010. Unfortunately, the goal of complete interoperability does not seem to be achievable in the near future because of the variety of systems that are in use. -
HITECH Act
HITECH Act is enacted under the American Recovery and Reenactment Act of 2009. It promotes meaningful use of EHRs which will improve the healthcare. It became a major driving force for the adoption of EHRs. Furthermore it provided the funds for implementing the interoperable health records system. -
New law by Congress
Congress passed a legislature to provide Medicare bonuses to physicians who use EHRs and to enforce penalties to those who do not use EHR by 2013. This served as a great impetus for physicians to start electronic prescriptions -
ONC HIT certification program
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology established a certification program to ensure adoption of EHRs that are innteroperable and meet the requirements of "meaningful use of EHRs" established by the HITECH Act. This is another step towards attaining a fully interoperable system of health records across the country.