Testimony of Thomas H. Payne, AMIA Board Chair-elect and EHR 2020 Task Force to the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee

On June 10, 2015 Dr. Thomas H. Payne, AMIA Board Chair-elect provided testimony to the Senate Health Education Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee, identifying near-term actions Congress should take to improve health IT interoperability and promote health information exchange.  Dr. Payne’s testimony summarized the recently published EHR 2020 Task Force report on the “Status and Future Direction of EHRs,” and focused on the need to (1) reducing documentation burdens for clinicians; (2) unleash the potential for every patient to enrich the learning health system by requiring vendors to give patients an electronic copy of their entire record, not just a summary; and (3) streamline the federal health IT certification program so the process is more flexible, more transparent, focuses on clinically relevant functionality, and tests for true interoperability.