President's Information Technology Advisory Committee
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February 9, 2001
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Co-Chairs:
Raj Reddy
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Members:
Eric A. Benhamou
Vinton Cerf
Ching-chih Chen
David Cooper
Steven D. Dorfman
David Dorman
Robert Ewald
Sherrilynne S. Fuller
Hector Garcia-Molina
Susan L. Graham
James N. Gray
W. Daniel Hillis
Robert E. Kahn
Ken Kennedy
John P. Miller
David C. Nagel
Edward H. Shortliffe
Larry Smarr
Joe F. Thompson
Leslie Vadasz
Steven J. Wallach |
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
During the past year, the President's Information Technology Advisory
Committee (PITAC) has focused much of its attention on providing
a vision for information technology's role in helping to drive progress
in the 21st century. As part of this effort, we established several
panels to examine specific issues, including a panel to review the
ways in which information technology can transform health care and
increase access to care for all citizens. The Federal government
has a critical role to play in driving this progress, which PITAC
has outlined in our report enclosed with this letter, Transforming
Health Care Through Information Technology.
Information technology
provides many exciting applications for the health sector, such
as computer-aided surgery, the use of telesensing methods to examine
patients from their homes, and patient/doctor interaction via the
Internet and digital medical libraries. Information technology tools
can provide the health care sector with unprecedented productivity
and quality of care if there is a strategic vision and adequate
research to ensure success. However, PITAC found that at present
the U.S. lacks a broadly disseminated and accepted national vision
for information technology in health care. In addition, the
biomedical community, including the Federal agencies, is not focused
on the basic, long-term information technology research required
to provide the community with the state of the art tools necessary
to take full advantage of the Information Age.
In order to rectify this situation, PITAC strongly recommends that
the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) outline its vision
for using information technology to improve health care in this country
and devote the necessary resources to do the basic information technology
research critical to accomplishing these goals in the long term. Further,
DHHS should appoint a senior information technology leader to provide
strategic leadership across DHHS and focus on the importance of information
technology in addressing pressing problems in health care. We further
recommend four ways that the information technology/health care nexus
can be accomplished:
- First, pilot projects
and Enabling Technology Centers should be established to
extend the practical uses of information technology to health
care systems and biomedical research;
- Second, a scalable
national computing infrastructure should be provided to
support the biomedical research community;
- Third, Congress
should enact legislation that assures sound practices for
managing personally identifiable health information of any
kind; and
- And fourth, programs
should be established to increase the pool of biomedical
research and health care professionals with training at
the intersection of health and information technology.
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We hope that these recommendations
will represent a major step toward realizing the potential of information
technology to increase every American's access to quality health
care. PITAC looks forward to working with you, your Administration,
and members of Congress to help dramatically improve our health
care system through the use of information technology tools. As
PITAC strives to provide sound, well-researched advice, we hope
that you and members of your Administration will feel free at any
time to discuss these and other important issues with members of
the committee.
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Sincerely,
Raj Reddy, Ph.D.
PITAC, Co-Chair |
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Ph.D.
PITAC, Co-Chair |
Enclosure
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