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Preliminary Observations on Information Technology Needs and Priorities at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services An Interim Report (2010) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 1-3

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
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From page 1...
... Collectively, these programs make CMS the largest purchaser of health care in the United States, and it interacts with thousands of health care providers across the country ranging from individual physicians to hospitals large and small, as well as with other providers such as ambulance services and rural health centers. The agency's core mission was established more than four decades ago, with a mandate to focus on the prompt payment of claims which now totally more than 1.2 billion annually.1 More recently, CMS has been mandated to undertake new and expanded responsibilities for driving national improvements in such areas as the adoption of health information technology (IT)
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From page 2...
... These ongoing operational requirements are currently being met with a very large and complex information technology infrastructure that incorporates hardware, software, and communications systems that vary considerably in age, capability, and sophistication. The ability of this infrastructure to continue to keep up with the ongoing changes demanded of it -- particularly as the agency takes on its newly mandated leading role in modernizing the nation's health care system and underlying health information technology -- is an understandable source of concern.
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From page 3...
... The committee received a series of briefings by teleconference from CMS staff, and it convened an information-gathering workshop on September 27 and 28, 2010, to hear a range of perspectives internal and external to CMS. In addition to those sources of background and related information, this report draws on the committee members' individual expertise and experience with health IT specifically and with IT systems in general (see Appendix B for biosketches of the members of the study committee)
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Key Terms

  • health insurance
  • business processes
  • electronic health
  • health records
  • newly mandated

  • insurance program
  • ongoing operational
  • future requirements
  • operational requirements
  • medicaid services

  • providing health
  • clinical health
  • rural health
  • health coverage
  • underlying health

  • promote health
  • health centers
  • health disparities
  • evolve business
  • care quality

  • affordable care
  • providing clinical
  • care services
  • future information
  • care nationwide

  • specific clinical
  • future challenges
  • clinical laboratory
  • information architectures
  • ongoing changes


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