Panel is Studying Ways to Improve Health Information Technology in the United States
June 5, 2007, Redlands, California -- ESRI announces that Jim
Geringer is participating in the State Alliance for e-Health, which
Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen and Vermont governor Jim Douglas are
co-chairing. The State Alliance is tasked with developing real-world
solutions for state-level healthcare challenges through electronic
health information exchange. Former Wyoming governor Jim Geringer , who
now serves as ESRI's director of public policy, will be a voting member
of the alliance. The National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices is supporting the work of the State Alliance for e-Health and
its task forces, along with partners such as the National Conference of
State Legislators and National Association of Attorneys General.
The
alliance provides a national forum for state-level stakeholders to
develop workable solutions and model practices, remove state-level
barriers to widespread adoption of health information technology, and
encourage interoperable health information exchange between and among
states and private providers. While the dominant issue for state
governments is the cost and management of Medicaid, the alliance will
consider the full range of health and medical care issues including
public, private, and personal health information exchange.
"Having
been legislator, governor, private employer, parent, and patient, I
know firsthand the importance of quality, affordable, and accessible
health care," says Geringer. "I also know the frustrations we each have
with the ever-increasing cost, complications, and impersonal approaches
typical in both the public and private sectors. With the information
technologies available to us today, we can speed the transformation of
health care services to improve patient safety and quality of care."
The
alliance is a 12-member voting board that includes sitting and former
governors, legislators, attorneys general, and insurance commissioners
along with advisory members who represent state health directors,
medical schools, consumer protection, state CIO’s, and private
employers. The voting and nonvoting members will guide the work of the
alliance and provide oversight to several task forces including
ESRI is a Corporate Fellow of NGA and will also participate in the meetings as part of its public forum to assist in
"Assuring that state-level health data exchanges contain accurate administrative and clinical information is one of the greatest challenges health data exchanges will face," says Bill Davenhall , global manager for health and human services solutions at ESRI. "I am delighted that we can make a contribution to the deliberations of the task forces."
For more information on the State Alliance for e-Health, visit www.nga.org/center/ehealth or contact Bill Davenhall , manager, Health and Human Service s Industry Solutions, ESRI, Redlands , California , at Email Contactor 909-793-2853, extension 1714.
About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States , most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit www.esri.com
ESRI GIS for Health
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Contact :
Emily Vines
ESRI
Tel. : 909-793-2853, extension 1-3571
E-mail :
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