NQF's Corrigan Tells Senate Committee That Investing in Health IT Holds Great Promise If It is Focused on Wringing Out Efficiencies and Coordinating Pa...( WASHINGTON Jan. 14 -- National Quali...),Health

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- National Quality Forum (NQF) President and CEO Janet Corrigan will testify before the Senate HELP Committee Thursday, January 15th to provide guidance on how HIT investments can achieve maximum benefit -- both for our economy and the quality of care our patients receive.

NQF is a private sector standard-setting organization with more than 375 members representing virtually every sector of the health care system. NQF works to raise the performance of the healthcare industry by infusing daily health practices with higher standards and routine measures of how and whether patients' needs are being met effectively and efficiently.

"We can no longer afford the health care system we have, particularly considering that 30 percent of spending is wasteful -- $600-700 billion dollars spent on care that is often unnecessary and even harmful care," said Corrigan. "HIT is not just a good idea, not just an innovation -- HIT is essential if we hope to achieve the goals we have set to achieve effective, affordable care that fuels rather than drains our economy."

Corrigan will speak to proven strategies for ensuring that Health IT is developed in a way that creates a rich history of information about each patient that helps providers predict, anticipate needs, and ensure effective, continued, and appropriate follow-up care that makes patients better and keeps them better. Currently, best practices in care delivery may take years if not decades to spread throughout a community and the nation. HIT can accelerate the sharing of quality information between healthcare systems to narrow current quality and disparities gaps in healthcare. HIT can also facilitate communication between providers across care settings, which can create safer, more efficient and patient-centered care. Evidence shows that when clinicians use HIT there is an up to 20 percent decrease in medication errors a
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