By Antonio D. French
Filed Friday, March 17 at 6:14 AM
Congressman Lacy Clay (D-MO) is co-sponsoring a bill with Republican Rep. Jon Porter, of Nevada. The bill would convert federal employee health records to electronic files that employees would keep for life and that would transfer among doctors.
According to Karen Rutzick, of GovExec.com, Clay said making health records electronic would save money and prevent medical errors.
Clay and Porter, who is chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, invited former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who now runs the Center for Health Transformation, to make the case at a hearing Wednesday.
"I start with a very simple premise: Paper kills," Gingrich testified, citing statistics that 98,000 Americans die as a result of medical errors each year. He offered several anecdotes, including one about the Central Utah Multi-Specialty Clinic, which built electronic health records and will save an estimated $14 million over five years as a result of efficiency and automation.
Porter cited a RAND Corp. study estimating that $162 billion could be saved annually if the country launched widespread health-care automation.
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