The recently enacted federal stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, contains a set of provisions known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act ("HITECH Act") that advance the use of technology in healthcare, principally by encouraging
hospitals and physicians to adopt an electronic health record ("EHR") system before the end of 2015. The act also provides funding for, among other things, an EHR infrastructure and technologies to allow for the electronic flow of information; the support of regional and sub-national efforts toward health information exchange; the promotion of interoperable clinical data repositories performing comparative effectiveness research on how electronic data use impacts healthcare treatments and strategies; and the integration of health IT education in the training of healthcare professionals. In addition, the HITECH Act establishes new responsibilities for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS"), through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (the "National Coordinator"), to develop and adopt policies and standards, including new privacy standards, for EHRs and other forms of health information technology. Given the scope of the HITECH Act, and its mandate to HHS to act quickly, regulations and guidance are likely to be issued by the agency regarding the next steps for providers and others to take in the near future. Below are some preliminary questions that hospitals and physicians may want to consider.
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