penalties. • American Hospital Association: AHA believes that Stage 2 of meaningful use should not start until at least 75 percent of hospitals and physicians have successfully achieved Stage 1. • American Hospital Association: Eligibility for Other Care Settings. The law establishing EHR incentive programs limited them to hospitals and physicians. As we move toward a more integrated healthcare system, additional settings of care also should receive support for transitioning to EHRs. • American Hospital Association: AHA’s ongoing advocacy efforts to ensure that the meaningful use and certification standards are within reach for the majority of hospitals and physicians. • American Academy of Physician Assistants: Recommends that section 4201(a)(3)(B) of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act be amended to extend the EHR Medicaid incentive payment to all physician assistants whose patient volume includes at least 30 percent Medicaid recipients. • American Hospital Association: AHA’s ongoing advocacy efforts to ensure that the meaningful use and certification standards are within reach for the majority of hospitals and physicians. Privacy • American Hospital Association: the code of conduct should discourage vendors from including in their contracts indemnity clauses or non-disclosure language that limit the ability of users to identify and raise safety concerns. • American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry: Assurance of confidentiality is at the foundation of an effective relationship between doctor and patient, and AAGP urges that privacy and security of individually identifiable health information—particularly with regard to mental health, substance abuse, and other sensitive patient information—be a critical core element on any national HIT system. • American Hospital Association: The AHA supports the development of a voluntary code of conduct for EHR vendors with specific commitments to ensuring and promoting safety. The code of conduct should make clear that vendors are responsible for safe design and product development and will support safe use of their products. Standardization • American Hospital Association: AHA must advocate for a significant national investment in developing methods to quickly and effectively translate standards and guidelines and changes as they emerge into the decision support tools embedded in the electronic health record (EHR). Addressing the Health Needs of an Aging America | 37 Addressing the Health Needs of an Aging America | 38 • American Medical Association: Chief among the safeguards outlined in AMA policy is the need to ensure that these technologies (HIT) are covered to enhance care coordination and information-sharing between those who provide virtual care and in-person care. • American Hospital Association: EHRs hold the promise of providing clinicians and patients with real-time access to medical information, which can improve medical decisionmaking, quality and patient safety. We need to standardize these technologies and achieve interoperability. Insurers, government and vendors should implement interoperability standards that allow providers to share health information. Electronic prescibing • Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine: Dedicated to Long Term Care Medicine (AMDA) work with legislators, regulatory agencies, and pharmacy organizations to promulgate secure, regulatory-compliant electronic means of prescribing controlled substances to ensure ready patient access to needed medications in the post-acute and longterm care (PA/LTC) setting. Patient portals • National Alliance for Caregiving: we encourage CMS to continue to identify ways to leverage Health Information Technology (“HIT”) as a tool that family caregivers can use to help patients. The Dept. of Veterans Affairs has found new ways to help families access patient information, through its Blue Button program and the Family Caregiver Pilot which equips caregivers with iPads to help manage care. We would urge CMS to look towards these VA programs as an example of how to transform clinical practice to better support patients and their caregivers and reduce overall health