CHIME Recommends Health IT Solutions to Congress

The current U.S. healthcare system is faced with many threats to patient safety. On July 1st in a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions group working on EHRs, CHIME stressed the need for correct patient identification to ensure patient safety. More than 1,400 CIOs and other health IT professionals from CHIME together launched a campaign urging Congress to make some changes. Those changes include allowing federal regulators to identify standards to improve patient identification and using federal funds for the development of a unique patient identifier, both of which lifts outdated prohibitions. 

In the letter, CHIME CEO Russel P. Branzell and CHIME Board Chair Charles E. Christian wrote, “As our healthcare system begins to realize the innately transformational capabilities of health IT, moving toward nationwide health information exchange, this essential core functionality consistency in patient identity matching must be addressed," and must be done quickly considering the millions of consumers who are just starting to use the many benefits of healthcare.

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Alison Killian is a recent graduate of Grove City College who majored in Business Management and minored in Biology Studies. She is a contributor to Medical Groups and passionate about all facets of healthcare. She plans on continuing work in the healthcare field especially in management. She is very interested in healthcare innovation and finding ways to improve the current system. She hopes to go back to school in a few years to earn a degree in medicine.