Senate bill encourages electronic health records for feds

Legislation introduced in the Senate on Wednesday would require insurance carriers for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to allow enrollees to access their health records electronically.

The bill, called the Federal Employees Electronic Personal Health Records Act, is meant to encourage the adoption of electronic health records nationwide. The bill's sponsors -- Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio -- maintain that such records would cut down on medical errors and improve overall health care.

Under the legislation, information in areas such as medications, blood tests, allergies and immunizations, would be available to enrollees over the Internet. This information could be shared with health care providers in emergency situations, ensuring that the most up-to-date data would be available.

The bill, which has been endorsed by the American Health Information Association and the American Medical Informatics Association, would require that enrollees validate their identities. An audit trail listing the identities of every person who accessed the record would be required. When sharing health records with medical providers, enrollees would have the option of revealing just portions of their medical history.

Federal employees could opt out of the initiative by choosing not to set up an electronic personal health record.

The Office of Personnel Management, which manages FEHBP, would have to meet these requirements about two years after the law's enactment.

The legislation is similar to a bill (H.R. 4859) introduced by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Federal Workforce and Agency Organization.

Last month, President Bush signed an executive order requiring federal agencies that administer or support health care programs to move their insurance carriers and medical providers to standardized information systems.

Under the order, OPM and the Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services departments must, by Jan. 1, 2007, codify in their contracts that they will migrate to standard health care technology established by HHS. All agency health IT system upgrades or purchases also must meet the new standards.

Daniel Green, OPM's deputy associate director for employee and family support policy, said last month that the personnel agency's contracts supporting FEHBP will include language requiring that new system purchases conform to the HHS standards in the 2008 contract cycle. Green said that OPM's ultimate goal is making all federal employee health records electronic.

At a House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization hearing in St. Louis on Friday, David Powner, director of information technology management issues at the Government Accountability Office, said HHS lacked detailed plans, milestones and performance measures for establishing an interoperable health IT system.

Despite that flaw, HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has made progress, Powner said. The certification criteria for ambulatory electronic health records have been set and 22 electronic health records vendors have met the requirements, Powner said.