Former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich recently sat before a committee of Atlanta’s key state legislators and made his case for what he hopes are steps toward a revolution in healthcare, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. His recommendations for improvements in the state reflect his overall approach to improving the national system, with his ideas leaning heavily on the importance of technology and information sharing. He said that Florida has done a good job of providing cost and quality data to patients, making it “the first state in the country to openly report a wide range of cost and quality measures for hospitals and outpatient facilities.” He recommended that Georgia adopt a similar approach to cost and quality reporting. He also called on the industry to adopt a different payment system for drugs, offering a reimbursement model that would pay consumers back in full for the least costly of all similar drugs offered of equal quality. Lastly, Gingrich made a push for use of electronic prescription technology to reduce paper and errors.

More: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/printedition/2006/09/24/edsuwoot0924.html