The issue of health care costs requires "fundamental changes" in the U.S. health care system, and HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt "is attacking the problem at two levels," Washington Post columnist David Broder writes in an opinion piece. In one proposal, Leavitt has assigned HHS to develop national standards for four "breakthrough projects" related to health care information technology by the end of the year, Broder writes. He adds, "One would standardize systems for registering patients and listing their prescriptions and other basic medical data," a second would "set standards for equipment allowing remote monitoring of chronic illnesses," a third would "focus on systems for exchanging medical test results from office to office" and a fourth "is a 'biosurveillance system' designed to alert public health officials to any change in the pattern of reported illnesses that could be an early warning of a pandemic." According to Leavitt, health care IT, as well as improved measures of health care quality, could "empower people to become much smarter consumers of health care" and help ensure care at "more reasonable costs without burdensome government regulation," Broder writes. In a second proposal, Leavitt plans to reform the health care system in New Orleans, Broder writes. The new system would focus on "community-based health centers, emphasizing screening for disease and prevention, rather than around the old hospital-centered system, with all the costs entailed in caring for bedridden patients," Broder writes. He concludes that, although the two proposals will not "solve the health care crisis" in the U.S., "it is fortunate for the country to have an executive as creative as Leavitt heading the federal effort in this field" (Broder, Washington Post, 2/23).

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