HIMSS14: Rodham Clinton thanks HIT workers

ORLANDO—Hillary Rodham Clinton thanked audience members for their work in health IT during her keynote address at the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference.

“We’re seeing remarkable advances in medical technology, innovative ways to deliver care--your focus is a big part in how this story ends. For me, it is reassuring that we can make progress driven by innovation and creativity.”

She cited her experience as a senator, working with Bill Frist and Newt Gingrich to implement EHRs. “It was a commonsense idea that I thought everybody should agree on” but did not come to pass. Not everyone agreed. “Today, thanks to legislation and new technology we are finally seeing the promise of EHRs.”

She also focused on improvements in data accessibility. “I am a believer in the idea that good data help to make for good decisions. It’s important to be guided by evidence on what works and what doesn’t. So many debates in Washington take place in an evidence-free zone,” she joked.

Transparency has improved but she called for more. “We need to drive improvements in health IT and make it easier to get data on how much treatments actually cost.” It’s starting to work, she noted, with healthcare costs growing at the lowest rate in 50 years. “That has significant implications for our economy going forward. We are on the right track in many respects.”

But, she foresees potential problems, such as Baby Boomers doubling the number of Medicare beneficiaries from 40 million to 80 million. “How will we improve coordination among all the healthcare providers responsible for a patient’s well-being?” And, will advances help us “replace once and for all our fee-for-service model with provider-led communitywide care that rewards value over volume?”

The challenges facing healthcare will require “all of us working together. We will have to be willing to work with people we may not agree with. But that is one of our greatest strengths.” She said in so many other places in the world, “divides prevent them from making progress.”

She acknowledged there is a lot of misinformation and anxiety about healthcare reform. People are worried about what they might lose even though the Affordable Care Act doesn’t impact the vast majority. “Part of our challenge is to clear away all the smoke and figure out what is working and what isn’t. It would be a great tragedy, in my opinion, to take away what has now been provided.”

Again addressing her audience, she said, “What you have done over the last decade has given us the raw materials that can revolutionize healthcare and improve not only lifespan but life quality. Through information technology and social media, because of all of this information, we are on the cusp of such extraordinary advances in what individuals and those of us working together can achieve. I was delighted to be invited here because I wanted to thank you.”