Moon Township, Pa.– Experts from Robert Morris University (RMU), Apelon Inc., and the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine convened a community discussion Wednesday, Dec. 16, on integrating medical and dental care data and issued their recommendations to President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team.
The discussion group, which included representatives from industry, academia, public policy, and clinical care, emphasized that failing to share dental and medical information can place patients’ health at risk. Records that seamlessly incorporate dental and medical information can reduce the dangers, but combining that data requires the coordinated efforts of informaticists, clinicians, researchers, IT specialist, and policy officials.
“During the 20th century, IT transformed every industry except health care,” said Dr. Frank Din, of Apelon, a Connecticut medical database company. “It’s time we brought health care into the 21st century. If we do not, costs will continue to skyrocket and the quality of health care will suffer.”
Valerie Powell, university professor of computer and information systems at RMU and a member of the Pennsylvania Commission on Chronic Care Management, Reimbursement, and Cost Reduction, encouraged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to promote data integration under its National Health Information Network strategy.
“Chronic care, prenatal care, and pediatric care will not be optimally supported, and health care costs will not be optimally reduced, until this integration need is actively addressed in U.S. health care. While federally-supported systems (VA VistA, IHS, AHLTA) all offer this integration, in general, with the beginning exception of Aetna, such integration of care is not available to Americans in private sector health care,” Powell said.
“Reducing the cost of health care is achievable if we promote an efficient and effective use of clinical information,” said Dr. Miguel Humberto Torres-Urquidy of the University of Pittsburgh. “Consequently, it is important to identify areas in which we can make rapid improvements, such as the adoption of electronic health records that support integration through standards. In the case of dentistry, it is important to develop not only these technological solutions but also human resources that will appropriately implement these technologies.”
“Preventing Medication Errors: Quality Chasm Series,” a report by the Institute of Medicine, estimates hospitals commit at least 400,000 medication errors a year, costing $3.5 billion – a figure that does not include lost productivity. Another 530,000 errors occur each year involving Medicare patients in outpatient facilities, the report found. Over a quarter of these medication-related incidents are preventable. More than 98,000 Americans are killed each year due to medical errors, many attributable to the current paper-based health system.
Hospitals and doctors using electronic health records (EHRs) have proven they save lives. The Center for IT Leadership suggests that utilizing interoperable ambulatory EHRs alone will save $112 billion a year, representing approximately 7 percent of health care spending. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology estimates that widespread adoption of EHRs could save up to 30 percent of annual health care spending.