MaSSSoftech

I'm enjoying the health insurance reform debate over which side is using the "real facts."

Each side has experts to prove their facts are true facts and that the other side's facts are not facts at all.
I'm not sure if it's Orwellian or Whoville.

It's also quite enjoyable to know in this debate that the U.S. Senate doesn't have a bill in writing. So, the saga with Sen. Arlen Specter at the town hall session in Lebanon was kind of like debating what may or may not be in a bill that may or not be written on an issue that may or may not be acceptable to the House of Representatives or the president.

I have concluded that I cannot have an impact on the health insurance reform debate in Whoville.

However, I do believe we can have an impact on health care in a positive way, right here in Pennsylvania.

In 2007, we started the Harrisburg Health Information Exchange. Its goal is to bring health care providers together to gain the benefits of health information technology -- sooner rather than later.

Using FedEx's technology, we can follow a biscuit from bakery to warehouse to store to buyer, and then mail the buyer a coupon to buy another biscuit. In contrast, hospital emergency rooms today have little or no medical history about the patient they are attempting to save.

To gain the patient-safety advantages of health information technology, every physician needs to use electronic medical record (EMR) software so patient information is digital, rather than just on paper. Then the EMR software is linked with a regional health information exchange that would allow -- with security, permission and privacy -- a patient's medical records to be viewed by emergency room doctors and nurses.

Our research indicates the Harrisburg area is ahead of the nation with approximately 30 percent of physician practices using EMRs versus a 14 percent national average. But that means 70 percent are not using EMRs.

To help physicians and health care providers, such as the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Pennsylvania, we established the EMR Adoption and Use Committee, chaired by Edith Dees, the chief information officer at Holy Spirit Hospital. Through Dees' leadership, health IT leaders are assisting physicians and health care providers with EMR selection, IT services and cost sharing.

If you want to do something positive to help improve health care in your region, you are invited to participate in the following Health Information Exchange efforts:


* The meeting of the EMR Adoption and Use Committee at 8 a.m. today in the TechQuest offices in the Harrisburg Transportation Center. Visit www.techquestpa.com to learn more and register, or e-mail Leigh Twiford at ltwiford@tccp.org.

* The 8 a.m. Sept. 30 meeting of the TechQuest Health Information Exchange.