AMIA wants to speed up HIT safety legislation

The American Medical Informatics Association is pushing members of Congress to pass legislation that would speed getting new medicines into the hands of physicians.

The organization representing medical informaticists also seeks a national health IT safety strategy that would include a “trusted space” for stakeholders to meet and review evidence on new innovations, according to a statement.

AMIA leaders meet with House and Senate leaders on September 20 to urge that legislation approved in recent months by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions be quickly finalized and passed by both houses of Congress.

Importantly, the legislation includes funds for the Precision Medicine and Cancer Moonshot programs.

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“Legislation being considered by the House and the Senate would give a ‘shot in the arm’ to our national research enterprise, and it would allow discoveries to be integrated into care delivery more efficiently to benefit patients everywhere,” said Thomas Payne, MD, AMIA board chair and medical director of IT at University of Washington School of Medicine.

AMIA members also explained to lawmakers the importance of legislative provisions to modernize clinical trials, in light of the maturation of informatics tools and electronic health records.

"Now is the time to get serious about health IT patient safety,” AMIA President and CEO Doug Fridsma said. “Now is the time to fully fund a collaborative, national center for health IT safety."