Governor Phil Bredesen led a national meeting yesterday to discuss ways to improve the electronic exchange of health records.

A report released by the National Governor’s Association says that at least 44-thousand people die each year from what they call a “preventable medical error,” due in part, to the fact that the U.S. healthcare system is still a “paper-based system.”

Governor Bredesen has long been a supporter of using electronic records so that doctors in different locations can easily access a patient’s medical history and coordinate care with other doctors. Bredesen led the discussion yesterday of the State Alliance for e-Health.

“Ultimately underlying all this is the feeling that we can do better in medical care if the various highly skilled practitioners we have in our country have access to the information they need to make decisions.”

The Alliance voted yesterday to ask the federal government to designate a certification body to regulate how electronic records are kept and exchanged. It also voted to encourage states to require that any healthcare provider receiving public funds who uses electronic records be certified.