Federal Report Will Advise Making Investment In Health-Care IT An 'Urgent Priority'Federal Report Will Advise Making Investment In Health-Care IT An 'Urgent Priority'

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt on Wednesday will issue a report recommending that investment in health IT should be "an urgent priority for the American health-care system."

The report includes recommendations from CEOs at nine major U.S. companies that don't have business operations in the health-care industry, including executives from PepsiCo, Target, Well Fargo, General Motors, and FedEx, says a Health and Human Services source.

The CEOs were members of a Health Information Technology Leadership panel, created last summer by then Health Secretary Tommy Thompson. The group was charged with evaluating the nation's overall investment in health IT and the roles of government and the private sector in the adoption of technologies.

Government researchers estimate that health IT, such as electronic health records, electronic prescriptions, and computerized physician order-entry systems, could save the United States billions of dollars and prevent tens of thousands of medical mistakes annually.

Businesses, along with the federal government, are anxious to rein in steeply rising costs of employee health-care benefits.