Hearings for Thursday, June 30th

[TayTay]

I got this one: (Kerry is RM or Ranking Member)\
http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/witnesslist.cfm?id=1563
Health Information Technology
Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness Hearing
Thursday, June 30 2005 - 9:30 AM - SR-253

Description: On Thursday, June 30, at 9:30 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Building, the Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness will hold a hearing on health information technology. The hearing will examine how information technology can reduce medical errors, lower healthcare costs, and improve the quality of patient care. More specifically, this hearing will discuss the importance of developing interoperable electronic medical records and highlight new technologies that will impact how health services are provided in the future. This hearing will not focus on any particular legislative proposal. Witnesses include:

Panel 1:

Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)

Panel 2:

Dr. David Brailer
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Dr. Carolyn Clancy
Director of the Agency for the Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Dr. Hratch G. Semerjian
Acting Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Dr. Robert M. Kolodner
Acting Chief Informatics Officer, Veterans Health Administration

Panel 3:

Ms. Susan Bostrom
Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems, Inc.

Dr. John Glaser
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Partner HealthCare System, Inc.

Dr. Peter Basch
Medical Director for e-Health, MedStar Health

Ms. Pamela Pure
Executive Vice President, McKesson Corporation

Ms. Karen Ignagni
President & CEO, America's Health Insurance Plans

[TayTay]

1. Foreign Relations (June 30)

Challenge of the
Middle East Road Map
http://foreign.senate.gov/index.html

HEARING before the

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
Thursday, June 30, 2005

Time: 9:30 AM
Place: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Presiding: Senator Lugar

Witnesses:
Panel 1
The Honorable C. David Welch
Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
Department of State
Washington, DC

Lt. General William E. Ward
Deputy Commander
United States Army Europe
U.S. Coordinator for Security
Department of Defense
Washington, DC

Panel 2
Mr. James Wolfensohn
Quartet Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement
Department of State
Washington, DC

[TayTay]

8. Nice remarks

I caught Sen. Kerry here too. (Odd, I just switched when the other hearing got repetitious and there he was. Huh!)

Nice questions on the Israeli settlements and what the hell are we doing over there.

[katinmn]

2. This is an important issue. I hope they address uniform standards

Electronic Medical Records do prevent errors and make medical
practices more efficient. However, less that 15 percent of
physicians have adopted full-scale EMR technology primarily
because:

Hospitals, clinics and labs must be on the same systems and be
able to communicate with each other. Physicians and large
health systems are afraid to invest in technology and training
when they may have to scrap it when and if a new standard is
adopted and is made mandatory.

Costs.

Possible instability of vendors. There is no open source
providers of the technology.

Privacy issues.

I wrote an article about this a few months back detailing why one med specialty is slow to adopt the standards. If anyone is interested, please PM me.

[TayTay]

3. Thank you

I fixed the first entry on GD and put everything back in. And I'm sorry.

[katinmn]

4. LOL! No problem!

People have so much to focus on, this is probably low on the interest scale.

[TayTay]

5. Nice opening argument

It cost .01 cents to get an ATM transaction. It costs $25.00 or so to get the same info out of a hospital in an electronic transaction.

We should be able to have a smart card with complete med records on it and be able to slip it into a machine at the next DR visit. Right now we are drowning in paperwork.

Pres had proposed $150 mil to update med records system. Some Boston hospitals spend that all by themselves. This proposal is underfunded and a 'joke.'

[TayTay]

6. Sen Barfbag up

OMG HE found himself in agreement with Kerry on something. Then went and blew it when time came to pay for all this stuff.

What a douchebag! He really is dumb enough to be a Rethug Prez nominee.

Ooooh smackdown by the Chairman. Sen. Kerry went to answer Sen. Barfbag's charges about 'raising taxes to pay for this' and got shutdown. No comments allowed on this, as it is a sacred Rethug cow. Same old Rethug bastards. We can't talk about the tax cuts, because they own us.

So, Kerry's the partisan one. * coughs up almost no money and says, yes this is a big problem. But my rich firends need tax cuts, so screw it and Kerry's partisan?

[TayTay]

7. This has been a good hearing

but there is definite tensions between Kerry and Barfbag. Everytime Sen. Kerry comes up with a good suggestion (The VA has a great system for tracking medical records, why can't we get that into more general use. Oh and it will cost between $30 bil and $250 Bil to get that done and the proposal is for $150 mil. No enough money, it's a joke.)

Barfbag comes back with his winning sports analogy and no brainless twit approach to discussion.

Please, oh please, let them go head to head again. This is highly entertaining.