CEO Corner
July 17 2008
Chairman and CEO George Halvorson Testifies Before U.S. Senate Committee
The health care system in the United States needs electronic care linkages – including personal health records like KP HealthConnect and care registries – Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals' Chairman and CEO George Halvorson testified before Congress on July 17.
Halvorson was one of four health care experts to testify before the Senate Finance Committee's hearing, "The Right Care at the Right Time: Leveraging Innovation to Improve Health Care Quality for All Americans."
The American health care system is "missing critical linkages among clinicians and we are missing systematic, patient-focused care," Halvorson told senators.
Kaiser Permanente, however, is already realizing the value of Health Information Technology. In May, Kaiser Permanente announced that it had completed its implementation of an outpatient electronic health record, thus allowing all of Kaiser Permanente's 14,000 physicians to have electronic access to their patients' medical records in every one of Kaiser Permanente's 421 medical offices and clinics.
Halvorson concluded his remarks with: "Our nation's current non-system – depending on siloed and separate paper medical records and providing perverse financial incentives that directly reward sub-optimal care and discourage efficiency – will never reform itself. It will also never magically become a ‘system.'
"We need to focus on the areas of the greatest potential - and we need to put computerized support systems in place as soon as that work can be done."
Read Halvorson's full testimony at the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's Web site .
You also can watch the entire hearing through the same site.