State tries to take health records into electronic age

Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., said Tuesday that they are trying to push Oregon’s health records into the electronic age.

The national trend toward electronic medical records is expected to reduce errors, costs and inefficiencies in the health care system.

Some state clinics already use such records, and health informatics training is under way at some Oregon colleges and universities, Wu and Kulongoski said. But they said Oregon can do more.

Wu said he will introduce legislation this week to allow the National Science Foundation to award grants for research and training in health informatics. And Kulongoski announced the appointment of Jody Pettit as Health Information Technology Coordinator for the state.

“Better information systems mean better health care,” Pettit said.

“We need information technology to help us break out of 1950s systems of record-keeping and knowledge retrieval.”

Eventually, electronic health record supporters want a system where disparate systems work together and patients and providers could access medical information anywhere.

Medicine is one of the last professions to break into the electronic age because of the cost, complication and size of the system. But Wu said allowing it to grow at local levels will encourage the conversion nationwide.

“[It] won’t fix all the problems in the system,” Wu said. “But what health care technology will do is get us more bang for the buck.”

Oregon has requested $26.5 million in federal funds to get more than 4,000 doctors in the state set up to use an electronic system.

The state was awarded $349,000 this week by the National Governor’s Association to assess the privacy and security issues of a national electronic health system.