Employers hoping to save money and become more efficient in the long run must push for electronic medical records and pay a portion of the necessary implementation costs.

That was the core message urged Tuesday by a group of representatives from health IT companies and large corporations at an event sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But what these players, along with physicians, hospitals and other medical providers, have not agreed upon is what systems to use and who should pay for them.

The result, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services acting Administrator Kerry Weems said at the Chamber, is that the physician’s office is one of the least technologically advanced places in the country.

“In 2008, information technology is second nature,” Weems said. “Doctors’ offices are the last bastion of the paper economy,” he said. “We can’t live with that any longer.”

Also speaking at the event, Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) said that all sides must be willing to collaborate and to kick in.

“If we don’t bring the elected officials, the business community [and] the entrepreneurs together, it’s not going to happen,” Porter said. Porter has co-sponsored legislation with Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) that would provide financial incentives for physicians to use electronic prescriptions for their Medicare patients. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) have sponsored companion legislation.

As part of its efforts, the administration has launched a demonstration project to integrate electronic prescriptions into Medicare.

“It should go through [Medicare] as quickly as possible,” Porter said. He also praised the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) electronic medical records system and said he was devising legislation to test electronic medical records in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Health IT also is a major public policy issue for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Paul Speranza, who is the Chamber’s chairman and the vice chairman of Wegmans Food Markets.

“Our view is that health information technology is the single most important building block” to improving the delivery of healthcare, Speranza said.

Policymakers, the business community and participants in the healthcare system agree on the benefits of electronic medical records, electronic prescriptions and other applications of IT in the healthcare system.

Expanding the use of health IT systems also is a component of the healthcare reform platforms espoused by three remaining presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), and has been on Congress’s radar for a number of years.

Supporters agree the biggest challenge is adopting uniform national standards to avoid a format war.

If left unchecked, some patients could find themselves in the same predicament as the consumers who gambled on Toshiba’s HD-DVD standard for home video. Toshiba last month announced it would yield the market to Sony’s Blu-ray technology, leaving its customers with technology that will rapidly become obsolete.

“It isn’t the lack of standards that’s the problem. It’s the abundance of standards,” Weems said.

The Bush administration has been coordinating efforts through the Department of Health and Human Services to organize private-sector operators, from technology companies to large employers, to certify health IT standards. Meanwhile, major tech players like Microsoft and Google are stepping into the market, betting that offering their products directly to consumers will give them a leg up on their less well-known competitors.

Competition between health IT providers should be based on whether the companies’ systems are compatible with other systems, a concept known as interoperability. Employers should vote with their checkbooks and “support vendors participating in interoperability standards,” said Mark Dente, vice president for healthcare solutions at GE Healthcare, which has been very active in the health IT market.

But the prospective costs continue to be a major obstacle, particularly in physicians’ offices, as doctors have been reluctant to shell out thousands of dollars on health IT systems when insurance companies and employers stand to get the most financial benefit.

At present, there is “a lack of compelling reasons for physicians” to spend the money on health IT, said Paul Foley, vice president at Visante Inc., a healthcare consulting firm. “Payers need to provide incentives to physicians,” he said. “Physicians have to share in the benefits of this.”

Pitney Bowes has made substantial commitments to spending money on health IT, preventive medicine and other initiatives aimed at driving down healthcare spending and is beginning to see the results, said Dave Nassef, vice president of the executive office of Pitney Bowes Executive Chairman Mike Critelli.

“If you invest in health, the [reduction in] costs will follow,” Nassef said.

Pitney Bowes is part of consortium that includes other large employers and healthcare companies — Wal-Mart, Intel and Cardinal Health among them — that came together to found Dossia, a not-for-profit entity designing electronic medical records systems for the participating firms.

Although the administration has been working on health IT ventures, lawmakers have proposed legislation and technology companies are competing to design health IT systems, employers are moving forward, Nassef said.

“We in corporate America got tired of waiting for somebody to invent an electronic medical record,” Nassef said. The VA’s system is “at least a decade ahead of the private sector,” he said, pointing out how much is left to be done.