[Jul 24, 2008]

      The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved by voice vote a modified version of a bill (HR 6357) intended to encourage hospitals, physicians and other health care service providers to adopt a nationwide electronic health record system, CongressDaily reports. The bill was revised to clarify measures related to patient privacy protections and uses of the medical records, based on concerns from stakeholders in the health care, technology and consumer advocacy sectors (Noyes, CongressDaily, 7/23).

The legislation would approve grants and loans to hospitals and physicians, particularly those with small practices, to purchase health information technology equipment, CQ Today reports. The bill also would require the federal government to develop standards for EHRs. In addition, the bill would require the federal government to begin implementing EHRs in its health programs as it replaces current equipment.

The bill included amendments proposed by:

• Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), which would require the HHS secretary to initiate a study into the use of health IT for programs related to the care of elderly and disabled residents;
  
  
• Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), which would require the HHS secretary to develop an informed-consent model that clarifies how a patient's health data would be used; and
  
  
• Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), which would allow graduate professional schools to qualify for grants to develop pilot projects on clinical education programs that use health IT (Armstrong/Nylen, CQ Today, 7/23).

According to CongressDaily, an additional amendment proposed by Rogers to ease restrictions on some data disclosures and access by businesses "sparked a lengthy debate." The amendment, which also would have reduced a requirement for a tracking system on shared data within businesses, was withdrawn after Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) called it "dangerous" (CongressDaily, 7/23). However, Dingell and other Democratic lawmakers promised to work on a compromise for the measure. Dingell said, "What we're trying to do here is balance out the protection of privacy but also make sure the system moves" (CQ Today, 7/23).