WASHINGTON– Today, U.S. Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) announced that Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D (R-LA) will chair a full committee hearing on the burdens the government’s electronic health records program puts on physicians. It is the second in a series of bipartisan hearings on possible solutions to address the failed promise of electronic health records (EHRs).
The hearing will be held on Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 10am EST in Senate Dirksen 430
“Senator Cassidy’s background as physician makes him the perfect chair for this important hearing,” saidChairman Alexander. “Our goal, through the hearings and our committee’s bipartisan working group, will be to identify the five or six steps we can take to improve electronic health records—technology that has great promise, but has, through bad policy and bad incentives, run badly off track.”
“As a doc, it’s frustrating that physicians are spending more time entering data and less time speaking to and examining the patient,” said Dr. Cassidy. “Business practices have put barriers between the doctor and patient—including high costs that the average doctor can’t afford. Patients’ health information should follow them no matter what healthcare provider they go to. Working with Chairman Alexander and others, we can break down these barriers.”
Dr. Cassidy has treated uninsured and underinsured patients in Louisiana’s charity hospital system for nearly 30 years. Dr. Cassidy and members of the committee have been participating in a bipartisan working group to help identify ways that Congress and the administration can work together to improve EHRs for doctors and their patients.