ALBANY, N.Y., August 10 – A comprehensive health information technology program has been announced by Richard F. Daines, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health (DOH), as part of Governor Eliot Spitzers agenda to advance patient-centered care.

Daines said $106 million will be invested in the health care community during 2007-2008 to support the implementation of health IT tools to allow portability of patients medical records and new tools to evaluate improvements in the quality of health care.

A new Office of Health Information technology will coordinate health IT programs and policies across the public and private health care sectors. These programs and policies will create the health IT infrastructure, the ability to support clinicians in quality-based reimbursement programs, and new models of health care delivery.

The following are the objectives that will drive the DOHs investment in a community-based health information infrastructure, according to Daines:

Ensure the privacy and security of patients health information;

Support New Yorkers right to have control over and access to their personal health information;

Provide information to the public on the quality and cost of care by different payers and providers so that consumers can compare the cost and value;

Use health IT to encourage better management of chronic disease, community-based long-term care, improved public health surveillance and reporting, and a modified certificate-of-need process to increase health care reform;

Supply health IT tools for validated quality measurement and reporting to support reimbursement reform;

Prepare New Yorkers for health care emergencies by developing the capacity to receive and exchange health care information, such as medications and lab test results;

Help clinicians and providers in small practices, community health centers, and rural and under-served areas close the health IT gap between them and larger institutions;

Increase the use of telemedicine, remote monitoring devices, and other medical device applications to exchange information regardless of where the patient receives services.

The DOH has established initial activities to advance a statewide interoperable health information and quality infrastructure, which include a strategic health IT implementation plan, a health IT coordinating council, and the health IT public-private partnership.

The strategic health IT implementation plan will include essential clinical, patient, technical, organizational, financial, and policy components to advance statewide interoperable IT. The plan will be submitted to Daines within 90 days.

The coordinating council will bring together internal DOH programs and policies involving health IT to align strategies, avoid duplication, and streamline programs. It will create a childrens health care initiative to combine programs with corresponding information systems for immunization registries, lead and newborn screening, and vital records to support improvements in childrens health, explained the DOH.

The public-private partnership will assist the DOH in working with public and private health care leaders on health IT. The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) has been asked by the DOH to coordinate this effort.

Daines will re-bid proposals sought in 2006, because of this new program, to grant $53 million through the third phase of the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers (HEAL NY) for health IT projects. Later this summer, a new RFP will be issued for $106 million to advance the technology required to construct an interoperable health information exchange.

Our long-term approach is more comprehensive than HEAL 3s original goals, so we feel taxpayers will be better served by a re-bid that will help us to achieve a seamless health information exchange capability that has strong protections for patient privacy, explained Daines.

Our goal is a health care system oriented around the patient, with strong privacy protections, reporting on quality of care and outcomes. The opportunities for improving health care quality, affordability, and outcomes are limited by New Yorks paper-based, error-prone and fragmented health care system. Health IT is part of our strategy to help improve health care quality for all New Yorkers.

Doctors and nurses need facts at their fingertips as they care for their patients, Daines said. This will help prevent medical errors, and I believe this will serve as a model for other states to follow.