EXPERTS CALL FOR REFORM IN 'E-HEALTH' RECORDKEEPING

Medical errors account for between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths each year in hospitals, costing up to $50 billion, partly because of fragmented system of recordkeeping, they said.

Between 10 percent and 81 percent of the time, doctors do not have access to patient information that had already been recorded in a paper-based filing system, according to data presented at the third annual conference of the Health Legacy Partnership and eHealth Initiative.

Noting that almost any retailer can, through its Web site, customize clothing sizes and pricing information at the stroke on a keyboard, Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Eve Slater, M.D., said personal "e-health information" is indispensable in helping people learn about better behavior and managing their chronic diseases.

Concerns about privacy of patient records and about incompatibility of computer platforms are holding back progress she said.

Herbert Pardes, M.D., president and CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, called for passage of legislation to support creation of an "e-health infrastructure." He said, "Hospitals cannot fulfill their missions ... they can't survive" without a modern way of keeping electronic records that can be accessed at multiple locations by multiple health care providers.

Randomized clinical trials - the gold standard for determining the effectiveness of certain treatments for disease - can take five years and cost up to $175 million, but the technology now exists to accurately predict the same results in 48 hours at a cost of only thousands, reported David Eddy, M.D., Ph.D., a leading authority on mathematical modeling in health.

"This is the Information Age, the beginning of the 21st century, and yet we have not addressed the problem of standardizing the collection and sharing of health data electronically, so that patients and clinicians will have the information to determine which treatments work best for specific conditions," said Joseph H. Kanter, chairman of the Joseph H. Kanter Family Foundation.

Kanter, a philanthropist, called for creation of a "national health outcomes database." He created the Health Legacy Partnership jointly with the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to develop a national health outcomes database. The eHealth Initiative is an organization of private and nonprofit health organizations dedicated to using information technology to improve quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of health care.

"As the nation considers reforms to the health care system, no workable agenda can ignore the pressing need to implement an interconnected, electronic health information infrastructure that will integrate clinical information with medical care delivery," said Janet Marchibroda, CEO of the eHealth Initiative.

"Every day, patients and family members tell us they want help finding the right doctor or hospital, understanding their treatment options, knowing whether best practices are being followed and simply reducing the incredible hassles involved in our fragmented health system," said David Lansky, Ph.D., president of the Foundation for Accountability, a health consumer advocacy organization.

Health Behavior News Service: (202) 387-2829 or www.hbns.org.