Implementation and effective use of interoperable health information technology (HIT) is absolutely critical to efforts to improve quality and safety in health care.  An electronically connected health care system has the potential to engage patients as active participants in their own care, improve clinical decision making and processes, reduce medical errors, and reduce the growth in health care costs.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) included $19 Billion for incentives to encourage HIT adoption.  It also included a number of enhancements to federal privacy law, which will help people trust that electronic health information will be protected and shared only according to their wishes.  While this legislation, known as HITECH, provides exciting opportunities to help reform our health care system, there is much work yet to be done to ensure that it is implemented in ways that actually produce better outcomes for those whom the health care system is meant to serve: patients and their families. 

For the last several years, the National Partnership has led an effort to engage a diverse group of national consumer, patient and labor organizations in the HIT policy debate. This group, the Consumer Partnership for eHealth or CPeH, was instrumental in helping shape the provisions contained in HITECH, and we continue to advocate that effective implementation will require a patient-centered focus.  We have articulated a pathway for what patient-centered care, enabled by HIT, would look like.

The group also drafted a set of "Consumer Principles,” in 2006, based on the nine privacy principles in the Markle Foundation’s Common Framework. These principles offer guidance for consumer-friendly development of electronic health information exchange networks.

Through our leadership of the Consumer Partnership for e-Health, technical assistance to state and national consumer advocates, and advocacy on the federal level, The National Partnership for Women & Families is providing pragmatic, consumer-focused solutions for effective implementation of HIT. To foster an active, informed consumer voice on this issue, the National Partnership launched an online community of advocates. If you are interested in being a part of this nation-wide community, click here.