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Dr. Edwards' Testimony to the House Committee on Small Business

Carladenise Armbrister Edwards, Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) Chief of Staff, testified to a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business, Subcommittee on Regulations and Healthcare on Wednesday, June 24.  The hearing was held to discuss how Health Information Technology (HIT) will impact small businesses and the government’s role in promoting the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) through the use of financial incentives and penalties as outlined in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

During her testimony, Dr. Edwards spoke about DCH’s active participation in the advancement of Health Information Technology and Transparency through the following programs and initiatives:   

• The establishment of georgiahealthinfo.gov, a health transparency Web site that provides health care consumers with information that allows them to identify providers by location, cost, and quality indicators; to evaluate health plans according to the services they offer; and to learn about health conditions and related treatments. 
• Grants awarded by DCH to local communities, large and small health care providers, and community health centers to implement interoperable electronic health record systems that allow the sharing of health information among disparate providers in a community to improve care coordination. 
• The creation of Georgia Healthe Connect, a Web-based application that will allow Medicaid Providers access to an interoperable electronic health record in a private, secure, virtual environment, which allows them to avoid the challenges associated with purchasing, hosting, and maintaining the hardware and software necessary to sustain a traditional EHR in their practice. 
• DCH’s collaborative work with academic institutions, managed care companies, health care associations, public health districts, public and private provider community, Quality Improvement Organization, and fellow government agencies to sustain Georgia’s Electronic Health Record Partnership, which was created in 2008 when Georgia was designated one of the 12 CMS EHR demonstration sites. 

“DCH believes that the concerted effort put forth by our State’s government to implement a strategy for increasing the adoption and utilization of Health IT will only serve to improve the quality of care and reduce the cost of health care that is a consequence of inefficiency, over utilization, and limited access to the right information in the right place at the right time,’ said Edwards.  “If it is done well, the ARRA can provide states the resources required to maintain and expand their efforts to ensure health care providers, no matter how small their practice, have access to Health IT and that they are able to benefit from group purchasing; extension services aimed at ensuring successful implementation through training, system integration services, and work flow re-design; as well as financial incentives for adoption and meaningful use.”