The Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) was created in 2004 through an executive order and legislatively mandated in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) of 2009. The ONC is the principal Federal entity charged with the coordination of the nationwide efforts to implement and use the most advanced health information technology and the electronic exchange of health information.

As part of health care reform, policy makers are further integrating the use of health information technology as a way to reduce costs, improve quality and increase care coordination. As a first step toward this transition, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” (also known as the stimulus package) allocated $20 billion to a new program which encourages physicians to adopt certified health information systems.

This program is based on incentives and penalties over time:

• Beginning in 2011 and ending in 2014, all physicians who are “meaningful electronic health record (EHR) users” will receive bonus payments.
• Beginning in 2015, all physicians who are not “meaningful EHR users” would be subject to at least a 1 percent penalty. That 2015 penalty would be increased to 2 percent if the physician was not also participating in electronic prescribing.
• In 2016, the penalty would increase to 2 percent; in 2017, 3 percent.
• For 2018 and each subsequent year, if the Secretary finds that less than 75 percent of physicians are “meaningful EHR users,” the applicable percent is decreased by another percent but never by more than 5 percent.
• Therefore, if the Secretary found that less than 75 percent of physicians were “meaningful EHR users” in 2018, 2019 and 2020, the penalty would be 4 percent in 2018; 5 percent, in 2019; and 5 percent, in 2020.

“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, the health care reform law, includes many provisions that have implications for the use of health information technology in heart rhythm care. The Society will lead the effort to ensure that electrophysiologists are ready for the implementations of the law’s provisions.

Additional information on federal health information technology initiatives can be found on the DHHS website. For more information about Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information, please visit the www.ihe.net.