SPOTLIGHT: Kennedy championed health IT, HIPAA

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) was an unlikely champion of health IT. As the second-most-senior member of the august body known as the U.S. Senate, you'd think that he wouldn't understand newfangled gizmos like electronic medical records, but he apparently did. It was his Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that approved the net $19.2 billion in federal EMR stimulus funding before the bill went to a vote before the full Senate, after all. FierceEMR