National Ag Week - March 17 - 24, 2013
If You Eat, Drink or Wear Clothing...

thank a farmer or a rancher!

National Ag Week is a special time to come together to recognize and celebrate the importance of agriculture. Agriculture provides almost everything we eat, use and wear on a daily basis. National and local efforts work to educate millions of consumers and ask "Where would you be without agriculture?" National Ag Week is a time for every American to recognize and celebrate the hard working farmers and ranchers who supply us with the safest and most secure food supply in the world.

Today's rancher feeds approximately 144 people, a dramitic increase from the 1960s when they fed 25 (source: Texas Southwest Cattle Raisers Assn.)

In Texas, as the agriculture industry takes center stage during National Agriculture Week, Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples asked Texans to join him in honoring the state's hardworking farmers and ranchers for making Texas a powerhouse of productivity.

"Our producers are responsible for the most abundant, most affordable and safest food supply in the world," Staples said. "The Texas agriculture industry employs one in seven working Texans and brings more than $100 billion a year to the economy of our great state. I ask all Texans to take time, especially on March 19--National Agriculture Day--to celebrate and thank our farmers and ranchers by buying Texas-grown and raised products."

"Many of us take our readily accessible and safe food supply for granted, which is a testament to the high standards and strong work ethic of those who work in our agriculture industry," Staples said. "National Ag Week is an occasion to recognize those who contribute so much to the health, well-being and prosperity of this country."

For a list of local farmers markets, Texas products and information about the GO TEXAN Program, visit the Texas Department of Agriculture website at www.TexasAgriculture.gov.

WASHINGTON - As the Obama administration begins to implement $85 billion in cuts to federal spending this year, no part of the budget other than defense will take a bigger hit than healthcare.

And the so-called sequester appears likely to have a disproportionate effect on areas of the health system already hobbled by years of retrenchment or underfunding, including public health and medical research.

Although the Medicare program will account for the largest chunk of dollars cut from healthcare simply because of its great size, the scheduled 2% reduction in its payments to doctors and hospitals is significantly smaller than what many public health and research programs face.

Laboratories at major universities and medical centers are already laying off scientists, even before the latest round of cuts is scheduled to take effect. And local public health officials, hit by years of cutbacks, are scaling back immunization campaigns and other efforts to track and control infectious diseases.

"They are doing cuts on top of cuts on top of cuts," said Eric Hoffman, director of the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children's National Medical Center in Washington. Hoffman's labs have had to delay several major projects, including new research into muscular dystrophy in children.

Also threatened are new initiatives sparked by public health crises such as mass shootings - which have generated calls for strengthening the nation's mental health system - and outbreaks of food-borne illness.

Compounding the challenges is a lack of direction from Washington. Obama administration health officials have provided little guidance about how they plan to implement many of the cutbacks and when precisely they will hit.

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  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner and the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Farzad Mostashari, M.D., announced HHS's plan to accelerate health information exchange (HIE) and build a seamless and secure flow of information essential to transforming the health care system.

"Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we are improving the way care is delivered while lowering costs," said Acting Administrator Tavenner. "We are already seeing benefits, such as a reduction in hospital readmissions due to these reforms. Health IT and the secure exchange of information across providers are crucial to reforming the system, and must be a routine part of care delivery."

This year, HHS will:

• Set aggressive goals for 2013: HHS is setting the goal of 50 percent of physician offices using electronic health records (EHR) and 80 percent of eligible hospitals receiving meaningful use incentive payments by the end of 2013.
• Increase the emphasis on interoperability: HHS will increase its emphasis on ensuring electronic exchange across providers. It will start that effort by issuing today a request for information (RFI) seeking public input about a variety of policies that will strengthen the business case for electronic exchange across providers to ensure patients' health information will follow them seamlessly and securely wherever they access care.
• Enhance the effective use of electronic health records through initiatives like the Blue Button initiative. Medicare beneficiaries can access their full Medicare records online today. HHS is working with the Veterans Administration and more than 450 different organizations to make health care information available to patients and health plan members. HHS is also encouraging Medicare Advantage plans to expand the use of Blue Button to provide beneficiaries with one-click secure access to their health information.
• Implement Meaningful Use Stage 2: HHS is implementing rules that define what data must be able to be exchanged between Health IT systems, including how data will be structured and coded so that providers will have one uniform way to format and securely send data.
• Underscoring program integrity: HHS is taking new steps to ensure the integrity of the program is sound and technology is not being used to game the system. For example, it is conducting extensive medical reviews and issuing Comparative Billing reports that identify providers.

The goals build on the significant progress HHS and its partners have already made on expanding health information technology use. EHR adoption has tripled since 2010, increasing to 44 percent in 2012 and computerized physician order entry has more than doubled (increased 168 percent) since 2008.

"The 2014 standards for electronic health records create the technical capacity for providers to be able to share information with each other and with the patient," said Dr. Mostashari. "Through the RFI, we are interested in hearing about policies that could provide an even greater business case for such information sharing."

In addition to seeking public input, the RFI also discusses several potential new policies and ideas to accelerate interoperability and exchange of a patient's health information across care settings so that they can deliver better and more affordable care to their patients.