26:1A-133 Findings, declarations relative to health information technology.

2. The Legislature finds and declares that:

a. It is in the public interest for New Jersey residents to have all appropriate personal health information available to them and to their treating health care professionals in a medical office, hospital emergency room, other health care facility setting, or pharmacy;

b. Natural disasters and other public health emergencies have demonstrated the need for timely, secure, and accessible health information, in particular for our most vulnerable populations, including senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and those with limited financial means;

c. Health information technology has great potential as one means of furthering progress towards achieving affordable, safe, and accessible health care for all persons by: ensuring that health information is available at the point of care for all patients, while protecting the confidentiality and privacy of the information; improving safety, reducing medical errors, and avoiding duplicative and unnecessary medical tests and procedures; improving coordination of care among hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, home health agencies, pharmacies, and health care professionals; and providing consumers with their own health information in order to encourage greater participation in decisions concerning their own health care;

d. The federal Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that health information technology, in addition to improving the quality of chronic care management and reducing medical errors, could achieve potential savings of almost 10% of total health care spending in the United States;

e. The many different and conflicting standards for collecting and reporting personal health information within the health care community currently hinder the appropriate sharing of patient health care information, and health information technology can eliminate these different standards;

f. State leadership can promote public policy, encourage coordinated efforts in the private health care sector, further public and private partnerships, and maximize federal and regional financial participation, in support of adopting an electronic health information infrastructure;

g. It is desirable to implement an electronic health information infrastructure in the context of a Statewide health information technology plan that includes standards and protocols designed to promote patient education, patient privacy, physician best practices, electronic connectivity to health care data, and generally a more efficient and less costly means of delivering quality health care in New Jersey, in order to provide for an interoperative environment among health care providers, health care payers, employers, and patients in New Jersey;

h. It is time for this State to clearly and unequivocally move its public policy in the direction of establishing an electronic health information infrastructure through a vehicle that provides for a collaborative planning and implementation strategy and includes the relevant public and private stakeholders in developing and achieving a sustainable model for an electronic health information network for New Jersey; and

i. In order to conserve and efficiently use funds for the effective delivery of quality medical care to all persons, it is the policy of the State to lessen the expenditure of resources on unnecessarily repeated medical tests, while maintaining the highest quality of medical care for our citizens.

L.2007, c.330, s.2.