Bill Seeks To Transform American Healthcare System

WASHINGTON -- July 21, 2004 -- Today, Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) officially introduced the “Josie King Act” (also known as the “QUEST Act”), named for an 18-month old infant who died as a result of preventable medical errors. The bill would transform the technological backbone of the American healthcare industry by 2015, enabling higher quality, better patient safety, and increased efficiency.

The announcement coincides with the National Health Information Infrastructure conference taking place in Washington today. The conference, organized by the Bush Administration, is focusing on developing a plan to improve the quality and safety of healthcare for all Americans by transforming the system through technology. Kennedy’s bill is the only comprehensive proposal currently before Congress to address this need.

"Our health care system failed Josie King, as it’s failed so many people," said Kennedy. "As incredible as our medical care can be, structural flaws in our healthcare system cost tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars each year. We can and we must do better." "Nobody should suffer needlessly the way Josie and her family have," Kennedy added.

Kennedy pointed out that IT, properly implemented, has the capability of revolutionizing the American healthcare system. The Josie King Act would create a series of interconnected regional health information networks to enable patients and providers to share information in a secure manner that safeguards privacy. This mechanism would create a fully electronic health information system in a decade, according to Kennedy.

Kennedy also noted "that information technology is the means, not the end. The end is better clinical outcomes for patients at lower cost." Therefore, Kennedy said, the Josie King Act will also dramatically increase research into best medical practices and methods to take advantage of the data available through clinical IT systems. It will also create standardized measures of provider performance and annual public measurements that could serve as the basis for new "pay for performance" initiatives.

Last month, Kennedy convened the "Frontiers of Healthcare" conference at Brown University in Providence to delve into strategies to transform healthcare around quality improvement and efficiency gains.

Coming out of the conference, Kennedy incorporated refinements into the legislation that were a direct result of the discussion that occurred there, including: a new scholarship program to create a cadre of healthcare leaders with the skills and orientation to promote a relentless drive for higher quality at lower cost; a new Center for Clinical Decision-Support Technology, to improve the integration of medical knowledge into computerized clinical information systems; and provisions to assist physicians in re-engineering how they deliver care to maximize the benefit of new technologies and processes.

When the various pieces of the bill are implemented, Kennedy said, the Josie King Act would institute a number of structural changes to the manner in which providers practice medicine that would reduce duplication, eliminate errors, foster establishment of and adherence to best practice guidelines for providers, give public health agencies a way to rapidly detect and respond to bioterrorism threats, provide data to measure and repair provider performance, and cut down on administrative costs such as transcription and billing.

The need for this legislation has never been greater. Kennedy pointed to numerous harrowing statistics to back up his case:

• Fragmented information: 20 percent of tests and labs ordered because previous results were unavailable;
• Frequent errors: as many as 98,000 deaths in hospitals per year due to preventable errors;
• Missed opportunities: evidence-based medicine used only 55 percent of the time;
• Archaic platform for state-of-the-art medicine: less than five percent of doctors use electronic health records; relative IT spending in healthcare is less than one-third of banking;
• High price tag: Waste, error, and duplication accounts for 30 cents on the dollar, totaling a $515 billion tax on employers and individuals.

"The incredible tragedy of Josie King’s story," said Kennedy, "is that her death was one hundred percent preventable. We know how to do so many different things to improve care, any one of which could have saved her life. But the system makes it difficult to do them."

"That’s why I’m calling this the 'Josie King Act'," Kennedy continued. "I hope her memory will give us the motivation to change the system so this never happens again."

Kennedy introduced the bill on the same day that Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson and National Health Information Technology Coordinator David Brailer announced a "progress report" on the development of a strategic plan for the implementation of health information technology.

"David Brailer has done a great job laying out goals for our healthcare system, but we need more. The report is a good first step, but we need a concrete plan for how to accomplish the goals we all agree on, and I think this legislation helps point the way," said Kennedy.

A summary of Kennedy’s legislation as well as his statement from the floor of the House are available upon request. For more information on Josie King, visit www.josieking.org.

Read the text of H.R. 4880.

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