By Mike Miliard

Government Health IT

Feb. 6, 2012

"To deliver high-quality, cost-effective care, a physician or hospital needs good information," said former senator Bill Frist, MD, upon the release of a report, on Jan. 27, from the Bipartisan Policy Center's Task Force on Delivery System Reform and Health IT. "Data about patients has to flow across primary care physicians, hospitals, labs, and anywhere that patients receive care."

"There is strong bipartisan support for health IT," added Frist's old senate colleague, Tom Daschle, and also for "moving away from a payment model that largely focuses on volume – rewarding providers for doing more – rather than on quality outcomes or value."

Hard to argue with that. But is support for health IT – and the transformative potential to improve quality, lower costs and widen access it represents – really as bipartisan as so many in the industry say it is?

Read the full article here

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Health IT Initiative, Health Project, Task Force on Delivery System Reform and Health IT