On April 27, 2004, President Bush called for the majority of Americans to have interoperable electronic health records within 10 years, and in doing so signed an Executive Order establishing the position of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The National Coordinator was charged with developing, maintaining, and overseeing a strategic plan to guide nationwide adoption of health information technology, in some cases referred to as the Electronic Health Records Initiative, in both the public and private sectors.

In the "Framework For Strategic Action", The National Coordinator proposed strategies that will achieve four goals critical to the President’s vision. The four goals include…

1. Inform Clinicians - focused largely on the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR)
2. Connect Clinicians -centered on developing a National Health Information Network (NHIN) and fostering Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs)
3. Personalize Care - enable consumers to manage wellness, assist with personal healthcare decisions and choose providers
4. Improve Population Health - requires the collection of anonymous, timely and standardized clinical information that can support reporting for public health monitoring and quality benchmarking.

As a community healthcare provider organization what are the potential benefits to you…

• Financial incentives for implementing and using a EHR system
• Reduced risk of EHR investment due to…
  • standardization of functionality, terminology and technology
  • mandated interoperability standards for NHIN
  • product certification requirements
• Federal programs to accelerate the lagging EHR adoption in rural and underserved areas

As an information system vendor to community hospitals and healthcare systems Dairyland recognizes the importance of the Electronic Health Record Initiative and the impact it will have on our customers. Dairyland realizes the necessity of keeping customers informed and more importantly positioned appropriately to adopt and support the initiatives products, standards and processes.

On-going Dairyland’s activities to support the Electronic Health Record Initiative includes…

• Continue to monitor the Electronic Health Records Initiative closely, following its on-going developments within government and industry organizations.
• Participate in industry events and associations to stay up-to-date with thought leaders and actively contribute in setting standards.
• Provide timely updates to our customers.
• Dedicated resources to monitor and review standards, ensuring that our products will meet the requirements set by the government and industry organizations.
• When appropriate pursue product certification through the Certification Committee for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT).

Today, Dairyland customers with our financial and clinical applications are well positioned for the future. The applications currently provide the functionality for capturing clinical and non-clinical data across a spectrum of care settings…hospital, clinic, long-term care and home health, creating a patient-centric longitudinal electronic medical record, the foundation for an Electronic Health Record.

In the future, as the EHR initiative continues to evolve, Dairyland will remain committed to ensuring that all of our products meet the requirements set forth by the government and industry organizations and protecting our customer’s investments in their information systems.