Privacy is a priority for health IT legislation

House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders hope to vote on legislation before the August recess that would create a national system of electronic medical records, according to Energy and Commerce ranking member Joe Barton. He said members working on changes to the bill "are making privacy a priority" even though the measure is chiefly a vehicle to speed the adoption of health information technology. Barton said his committee's bill will likely have "the strongest privacy protection of any bill that's gone through the House or Senate in the last five or 10 years."