Health information technology (HIT) was another frequently debated topic during the campaign season. This technology has the potential to improve quality of care and efficiency of operating and business processes throughout the healthcare system. Use of HIT built on a secure, interconnected platform will benefit health professionals through the immediate availability of standardized patient health information for clinical decision making. HIT will also enable patients to become more involved in their care by making it easier for them to access their records and share them among their healthcare team. Furthermore, HIT will advance the goals of personalized medicine and will benefit the American public. This technology will also enable the systematic study of diseases at the population level, making it easier to detect disease outbreaks and to monitor treatment response in various subgroups. Perhaps most importantly for rheumatology, it should enable more efficient management of chronic disease because of the ready availability of information among various providers and over long periods of time. Thus, the goal of HIT is not the adoption of electronic medical records systems but rather the development of a more effective and more efficient healthcare delivery system enabled by an IT infrastructure.
Healthcare reform cannot be discussed without considering the impact that comparative effectiveness will have on a physician’s practice, patients, and patient advocates. Comparative effectiveness evaluates the relative effectiveness and safety of a treatment to its alternatives. In this regard, the medical community suffers from incomplete information on comparative effectiveness, especially related to drug therapies. This is because studies of the effectiveness of drug therapies are largely controlled by pharmaceutical companies. To date there has been no incentive—indeed there may be significant financial disiencentives—to launch expensive comparative studies of two effective approved treatments in order to determine which one is more effective, less costly, and/or safer, and under what circumstances. Thus, while comparative effectiveness research has the potential to significantly improve healthcare value (i.e., improve health outcomes and reduce costs), more empirical evidence is needed to guide these decisions. Rheumatology has a long track record of conducting such research. I believe that this experience uniquely positions our discipline and our College to contribute in a meaningful way to this important national debate.
ACR’s Efforts for 2009
So where does the ACR fit into healthcare reform? The ACR has an opportunity in this era of change and reform to become one of the leaders in chronic disease management. President Obama has stated that chronic disease management and prevention is an essential element for the transformation of the United States healthcare system. This belief is widely shared. Arthritis is the most prevalent and the most disabling chronic condition in America, and rheumatologists are the physicians with highly specialized training in clinical care, education, and research related to arthritis. The ACR will work to ensure that this fact is broadly understood both inside and outside the beltway. The ACR regularly works with the American Medical Association, American College of Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Arthritis Foundation, as well as a host of other medical and patient organizations. In the coming year, we will strengthen our existing collaborations and seek out additional alliances with organizations and groups who share our vision to improve care for Americans with arthritis and other chronic disease.
