AAMC urges passage of patient safety legislation
The AAMC, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and more than 125 other healthcare organizations sent a letter to members of Congress last week urging them to "pass a patient safety bill that will improve and protect the safety of America's patients." The letter expresses concern that the full potential of patient safety initiatives will remain unrealized unless Congress passes legislation "that establishes an environment in which health care professionals and organizations can report and analyze health-care errors and share their experiences with others in order to prevent similar occurrences." For more information, please visit http://www.aamc.org/advocacy/library/teachphys/corres/2005/060705.pdf.

HHS creates new electronic health record commission
The Department of Health and Human Services announced last week the formation of a 17-member advisory commission to recommend specific actions that will accelerate the widespread application of health information technology. The American Health Information Community, will focus on the creation of standards, a certification process, and a secure "national architecture" for sharing electronic health information. The commission will be chaired by HHS Secretary Leavitt and will include consumers, payers, providers, purchasers, vendors, and other stakeholders among its membership. HHS will solicit nominations for people to serve on the AHIC and will also be issuing four requests for proposals that will "pave the way for interoperability." For more information, please visit http://www.hhs.gov/healthit/ahic.html.

Senators urge extension of moratorium on resident training at non-hospital sites
More than 60 U.S. senators sent a letter recently to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requesting an extension of the one-year moratorium that allowed teaching hospitals to count (for purposes of Medicare payments) residents training at non-hospital sites regardless of the financial relationship between the hospital and the supervising physician. The moratorium, established under Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, expired on Dec. 31, 2004. In the letter, the senators express concern that CMS has denied payments for time residents spent in non-hospital settings where teaching physicians were freely volunteering their supervisory time and they urge CMS "to act immediately, through its inherent regulatory authority, to extend and expand the moratorium" in order to allow further study of the issue. The senators are concerned that Medicare regulations are discouraging "community physicians in non-hospital settings from agreeing to supervise residents" and would like CMS to work with Congress to find a more workable resolution. For more information, please visit http://www.aamc.org/advocacy/library/teachhosp/collinsdurbin.pdf.