Obama Echoes Bush’s Call for EHRs
ADVANCE Perspective: HIM
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Ever since President Bush’s 2004 State of the Union address, when he called for the use of electronic medical records for most Americans by 2014, journalists in the HIT realm have used that line as the foray into many stories (look, I’m doing it right now!).
We in the health care journalism field may have a slightly new opening line for stories. President-elect Barack Obama yesterday gave a speech in which he echoed Bush’s call for EHRs, saying that the government will push for EHRs for all Americans within the next 5 years.
The president-elect touted the benefits of EHRs, saying that computerized records would not only save money, but also enhance patient care, according to ABC News.
According to the Boston Globe, Obama said he would spend $50 billion over 5 years on implementing EHRs. The president-elect’s proposed economic stimulus package is also expected to include money that will go toward the implementation of electronic records. Last Thursday, the Globe featured an article that went into some critics’ concerns about investing in the current state of health information technology.
“In a recent open letter to the president-elect, a top technology adviser to the American Academy of Family Physicians said that current systems are expensive, cumbersome to use, and cannot easily exchange information about patients’ health histories and treatments among different hospitals, labs, and doctors’ offices,” the Boston Globe reported.
The authors of the letter noted that some funds should go to EHRs, but proposed that most of it should be directed toward technology that comes with a cheaper price tag, like incentivizing doctors who e-mail patients and providing more physicians with Internet access, according to the Globe.
If the money is invested in HIT, do you think it will make a difference? Should the money go straight to EHRs, or, as the letter suggests, to other, cheaper technology that would also enhance patient care? Will we achieve the goal of EHRs for all Americans for 2014, or will it simply continue to be a catchphrase used to start stories when HIT journalists are in a bind?
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