Posted on 06/12/2010 8:32:16 AM PDT by tobyhill
In February 2009, as part of legislation to revive the economy, Congress provided tens of billions of dollars to help doctors and hospitals buy equipment to computerize patients’ medical records.
But the eligibility criteria proposed by the Obama administration are so strict and so ambitious that hardly any doctors or hospitals can meet them, not even the most technologically advanced providers like Kaiser Permanente and Intermountain Healthcare.
Doctors and hospital executives, who have expressed their frustration in meetings with White House and Medicare officials, said the issue offered a cautionary tale of what could happen when good intentions meet the reality of America’s fragmented health care system.
The goal of the law is to provide financial incentives, through Medicare and Medicaid, to encourage doctors and hospitals to adopt and use electronic health records. When the bill was passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the incentive payments would total $34 billion.
It is no surprise that tiny hospitals in the Midwest and doctors practicing by themselves would grumble about the White House proposals.
But elite institutions have similar concerns. Among those expressing deep reservations about the proposals are pioneers in the use of health information technology like Kaiser, Intermountain, the Mayo Clinic and Partners HealthCare System in Boston, which includes Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
One of most revealing assessments came from Dr. Thomas H. Lee, president of the physician network at Partners HealthCare.
“Effective use of electronic health records will greatly improve patient safety, quality and efficiency,” Dr. Lee said in a letter to Medicare officials. But he said the approach taken by the administration was based on “unrealistic expectations” and “unachievable timelines.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Obama isn’t getting OUR medical records.
Our health is none of HIS or the government’s business!
Maybe they should look at the Census Bureau’s computer system and software. That’s really working well.
Gotta love it!
Your government at its finest...makes one wonder how you can be strict and ambiguous. er ambitious at the same time LOL!!!
It can’t be done so in that sense it’s good but knowing Obama, he’ll just have the database set up in the Government offices, like the SS office.
Well yes, but it also as unconstitutional as Bush snooping on your library cards.
I wonder why the ACLU has seen this complication before.
And the lame stream, well duh.
The Fuhrer wants to control everything in your life including your death. His goons in Congress will be voted out first and then he will be voted out too. Even his RAT cohorts aren’t defending the enemy within any more.
No, no, no. Don't let reality get in the way of what politicians want. On second thought, it's probably just as well that these industry leaders can't accomplish what the liberal politicans want. It makes nationalizing it that much easier to justify.
This administration is one gigantic clusterblank.
No worries.
No matter what happens, every failure and shortcoming will somehow be projected on the Republicans and Bush.
Take a look at the “doc fix.” A Democrat bill, rammed through, with Obama signing it, both the House and Senate in Democrat hands and they blame the Republicans if the “doc fix” doesn’t pass and causes a huge disaster in US health care! This is comical!
Obama’s motto: “SHOVE IT THROUGH NOW. DON’T WORRY ABOUT DETAILS NOW OR LATER.”
And GE thanks them ...
Thank you!
We’re hanging in there ... I’m too dam stubborn to raise the white flag. Things are looking up!
“We're sorry, you can't have that procedure. You received one last month. See? It says right here. On you didn't? Well fill out these forms to protest. We'll get back to you in a few months.”
As someone with far too much interaction with heath care providers (for my children), I think the idea of digitizing medical records is a fabulous one. I don’t want the federal government in charge of the data but the insurance companies or maybe a third party. Imagine having instead of an insurance card, you would have an encrypted 16Gb thumb drive with all of the information a new health care provider needs to fully assess your condition. They would have x-rays, cat scans, MRIs, prescription drug history, prior opinions, etc... No more redundant tests, no more filling out the same paperwork with every new provider. Ask any doctor, fully 1/2 of the medical profession today is paperwork. I would think a system like this would save insurers so much money that it would be something they would desperately want.
Yeah, those folks out in the Midwest are way behind the times.
In the Orwellian society that zero seeks to create, physicians that do not have electronic records may have a competitive advantage by ensuring privacy from government intrusion. It does appear that any incentives offered are simply a ruse. It would probably be better to wait close to 2015 before purchasing the electronic record system to see if prices fall and the technology improves. The requirement of medical records will also hasten the retirement of many physicians and lead others to stop taking government insurance.
The reason EHR has not taken off faster...and the reason it's not already universal...is DOCTORS AND LAWYERS.
This is not a money issue. There are immediate financial benefits for any healthcare enterprise to implement EHR and any enterprise could fund these upgrades themselves.
However, doctors like to write notes on charts hanging at the end of the bed and lawyers like signatures.
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