Good Recommendations from California

The California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) has released an issue brief outlining ten key recommendations to help transform health care in the state through adoption and effective use of health information technology. The recommendations will be presented Thursday, Oct. 12, at Governor Schwarzenegger's eHealth Action Forum. The report is entitled: "California can lead the way in health information technology."

• Follow this link to the full report (pdf)

The press release identifies six "leverage points":

• Empower California’s consumers with information about their health care providers, health insurers, and their own personal health care, with stringent safeguards to ensure privacy and confidentiality;
• Equip providers, especially those who care for underserved populations, with effective and affordable health IT tools to improve performance and efficiency of clinical care;
• Educate and expand California’s health care workforce in the use of IT
• Build a robust infrastructure that will keep Californians safe in the event of an emergency and serve as a foundation for transforming health care
• Provide leadership that will coordinate the health IT activities of the state’s many departments and programs and align public and private sector actions
• Support investments that recognize the social good that can come from targeted applications of health IT.

They issued 10 recommendations:

1. Recommendation 1: Support the right of Californians to securely access and control their personal health information. Adopt policy and legal changes to ensure consumers have access to and control over t heir personal health information. Definite the obligations of providers, payers and other stakeholders to provide Californians with electronic access to portable, secure, and affordable personal health information. Californians should have the right to store their own information directly, or with a custodian of their choice, based on their interests and preferences.
   
2. Recommendation 2: Provide Californians with easy-to-understand, comparative information about health care quality and cost. Expand existing public and private efforts to provide consumers access to the information they need to make informed decisions about their health care providers and health plans. This is feasible only if health care information is collected, sorted and analyzed electronically. Use the purchasing power of the state to crate incentives for providers and health plans to provide this information, and report their degree of participation to Californians.
   
3. Recommendation 3: Close the health IT gap for community clinics, small physician practices, and rural health centers. Provide coordinated public and private incentives and subsidies to equip these providers with the same capabilities available at large, urban practices. Accelerate the adoption of certified electronic health records (EHRs), ensure interoperability of software applications, and promote participation in community-wide health information exchange initiative to improve care for low-income populations.
   
4. Recommendation 4: Develop an IT-savvy health care workforce. Direct the chancellors of the California State University and the California Community College systems to develop curriculum and training certification programs to ensure that California has sufficient health care workers trained in the effective use of health IT.
   
5. Recommendation 5: Develop a statewide emergency health IT infrastructure. Prepare California for a state of emergency by financing a statewide health IT infrastructure with the capacity to retrieve and exchange lab and pharmacy information. The networks would be a foundation for an eventual statewide health information infrastructure to support patients, providers, and other important public health, research, and health industry requirements.
   
6. Recommendation 6: Develop a telehealth and telemedicine system to improve health care access for rural and underserved communities. Create an action plan to develop, staff, and maintain a statewide, broadband telemedicine network. Such an effort should be multidisciplinary drawing on the strengths of the state's academic medical centers, business schools, and other relevant disciplines.
   
7. Recommendation 7: Adopt and implement national and state health IT standards. Employ the state's purchasing power to require those who develop, purchase, and use health IT systems to adopt uniform standards to promote the flow of secure information. Endorse national standards where they exist; forge ahead with state standards where there are none.
   
8. Recommendation 8: Coordinate the actions of all state agencies and programs to leverage health it to improve access, quality, and affordability of care. Direct the Department of Health Services in its administration of Medi-Cal and other programs, the Department of Managed Health Care, and other state agencies to advance the health IT agenda articulated in the eHealth Action Plan. Encourage CalPERS to pursue the same agenda. Coordinate state policies and incentive programs with those of the private sector.
   
9. Recommendation 9: Align public and private sector actions to innovate and transform health care. Create mechanisms for engaging the private sector in developing innovative health IT solutions and work with them to improve the health care system. Recognize that the state government cannot do it alone.
   
10. Recommendation 10: Create a social investment fund to support and sustain health care innovation and transformation through health IT in California. Focus the fund's investments on health care innovation and transformation for the public benefit of the residents of California. These investments should seed the key actions of the governor's eHealth Action Plan and stimulate the private marketplace to accelerate its investments in health IT.