Supporting and Enhancing Health Information Technology

Issue: Support policies that will help leverage health information technology (IT), including augmented intelligence, to improve patient care and reduce administrative burdens on physicians and their teams. Promote policies to ensure health IT is used in appropriate ways to enhance patient care, and not discriminate or inappropriately restrict patient access to care.

Why Action is Needed

Insufficiently developed and monitored health IT tools can worsen various aspects of health and health care. For example, augmented intelligence (AI) technologies can exacerbate disparities in health and health care if not appropriately developed and monitored. Health IT must be developed and used to improve the quality of care, increase efficiency, and prevent medical errors. Additionally, insufficient privacy protections for personal health information can erode patient trust and contribute to patients withholding important health information from their physicians, which can have negative clinical consequences for patients.

ACP’s Position and Advocacy Efforts

The American College of Physicians (ACP) believes that health IT, including emerging technologies such as AI, should support and enhance equitable, high-value patient care and improve the patient-physician relationship. At the federal level, ACP advocates for policies that aim to leverage health IT to improve shared clinical decision-making at the point of care, and to support physicians in sharing practical and useful information effectively and securely with other health care professionals and patients.