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Washington, D.C.—The nation’s largest independent union of federal workers offered suggested improvements on pending legislation that would implement a system of electronic medical records for federal employees, its leader told a House subcommittee today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said that making electronic health records available to participants in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) “has the potential of providing important benefits” to federal workers, retirees and their families.

These benefits, she told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, include better coordination of medical records—particularly since participants, for a variety of reasons, can and do move between the many FEHBP plans; easier access to these records; a reduction in errors; the possibility of saving lives because of the ready availability of such information; and the opportunity, over time, to help control health care costs. The subcommittee is reviewing H.R. 4859, the Federal Family Health Information Technology Act.

At the same time, the NTEU leader stressed that privacy of health records is a “significant concern” in connection with the legislation. “The development of privacy standards is essential prior to the implementation of this legislation,” she told the subcommittee. “I cannot say that NTEU is entirely confident that this legislation in its current form fully protects participant privacy.”

Most importantly, President Kelley said, “federal employees need to be protected from their employer having any access to their personal medical records.”

Kelley suggested that as the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) develop standards for medical IT, they report back to employee and retiree representatives and Congressional committees on a regular basis.

The NTEU leader applauded Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV) and Rep. William Clay (D-MO) for including in the draft legislation a provision that prohibits increases in FEHBP premiums to pay for medical information technology. “This provision’s strict enforcement will be the key issue,” she said.

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents some 150,000 federal workers in 30 agencies and departments.