Statement by Mike Leavitt Secretary of Health and Human Services

About the First Meeting of the American Health Information Community

The promise of health information technology (health IT) is known to every person at this table. Each of you, and others observing this meeting today, have given dozens, and some of you hundreds, maybe even some of you thousands, of speeches on the power of health IT to transform health care in this country. For that reason, I will not dwell on potential or promise, just progress.

This group is about progress: serious, measurable, urgent progress toward meeting the President’s goal of electronic health records being available to Americans, and the power of electronic health records to make the health care system patient-centered and safer. It’s about producing higher quality, lower cost health care, with fewer mistakes and less hassle.

Why is this group different than any of the hundreds of others who regularly gather under different banners and acronyms for the same purpose? Spoken bluntly, the answer is market power.

Around this table sits representatives of the federal and state agencies that pay for and regulate a major piece of the $1.7 trillion dollars a year spent on health care in America. For many years, health care providers, payers, patients and governments at all levels have dealt with the dilemma of how a segment of society, as diverse and fragmented as this one, could reach in a free market system the conclusions necessary to accomplish interoperability. My conclusion: the federal government has to lead by using its market power and capacity to convene. We need to lead with our feet. ...

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U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

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