mward04
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Government Wants to Bring Health Records Into Computer Age
July 21, 2004
By STEVE LOHR NY Times
The Bush administration plans to announce today a long-term
plan for modernizing the nation's health care system with
information technology, bringing patient records and
prescriptions out of the realm of ink and paper and into
the computer age.
The administration's strategy, presented in a report to be
published today, regards the government's role as one of
mainly setting goals and working with the private sector to
establish product and technology standards so the computer
systems of doctors, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacists
and insurers can efficiently communicate and share
information.
The government, according to the report, will also use its
formidable buying power as the largest purchaser of health
care - through federal Medicare and Medicaid programs - to
accelerate the transition to electronic patient records,
reversing what the report terms "a previous lack of
cohesive federal policies supporting" health information
technology.
"There is an absolutely important role for government,"
Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human
services, said yesterday.
Because the health care industry is so fragmented, Mr.
Thompson said, the government must encourage standards to
reduce the risk of technology investments.
"Then," he added, "we have to demand that the medical
industry invest in technology."
The report, "The Decade of Health Information Technology,"
is being published today at the beginning of a
government-sponsored conference in Washington. It says that
the government should work closely with the private sector
to ensure common product standards for storing electronic
health records, so data can be shared among institutions
and personal information can be kept secure. A product
certification system, the report says, should be
considered.
The government also plans to organize a consortium of
private companies to plan, build and operate health
information networks. A Health Information Technology
Leadership Panel of industry executives and health care
experts will be created to advise the government on the
costs and benefits of health technology, and will report in
the fall. Among other steps, the government will create a
Web site where Medicare beneficiaries can review customized
information about services they have received. A pilot test
of the Web site will be conducted in Indiana this year.
The savings from making the transition to electronic health
records, according to administration officials and health
care experts, could be sizable in terms of both dollars and
lives. The report estimates that if most patient records
were in electronic form, the savings would be about $140
billion a year, or nearly 10 percent of the nation's annual
health care bill.
Besides the cost savings from reduced paper handling, the
automation of an electronic system could sharply reduce
medical errors, which are estimated to be responsible for
45,000 to 98,000 deaths a year - more than breast cancer,
AIDS or motor vehicle accidents, according to the Institute
of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Some of those errors result from simple lapses - a patient
who receives the wrong drug, for instance, when a nurse or
pharmacist misreads an illegible handwritten prescription.
Others result because laboratories' test results are not
immediately sent to doctors to alert them if patients are
reacting badly to drugs.
"Without computer-based patient records, those errors are
not going to be reduced," said Dr. Thomas Handler, a
research director at Gartner, the technology research firm.
The $1.5-trillion-a-year health care industry has not
invested much in information technology, compared with most
businesses. In the health care industry, the investment in
information technology - computer hardware, software and
services - is about $3,000 for each worker, compared with
$7,000 a worker on average for private industry and nearly
$15,000 a worker in banking.
Hospitals and clinics have invested heavily in medical
technology like magnetic resonance imaging machines and
other sophisticated equipment. But most of the investment
in information technology, analysts say, has been on
back-office financial and administrative systems to handle
tasks like billing and collections.
At the clinical level, where employees include doctors and
nurses, adoption has been slow. Only 13 percent of the
nation's more than 6,000 hospitals have any kind of
electronic patient record system.
Cost has been a big hurdle. Most hospitals do not make
money, so they forgo technology investments that seem to
have an uncertain return. And until recently, bedside
technology has often been expensive and cumbersome. The
spread of light, low-cost hand-held computers has changed
that - making it much more practical for the government's
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to promote
standards for ordering and processing electronic
prescriptions.
"We've reached the point where the technology really can
have a big impact," said David Lubinski, managing director
of health care and life sciences at Microsoft.
The government report was prepared by Dr. David J. Brailer,
who was appointed in May as the national coordinator for
health information technology, a new post. Health care
industry experts see his appointment and the government
plan as encouraging steps. But, they note, much will depend
on how forcefully the government pursues its goals and how
effectively the private sector responds.
"You need the big stick of the government and the
innovation and commitment of the private sector," said Neil
de Crescenzo, who heads the health care practice for
I.B.M.'s business consulting services. "And the real test
will be 6, 12 or 18 months down the road. Are the standards
being set and implemented, and are these networks being
built?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/technology/21record.html?ex=1091468171&ei=1&en=2d601c720e5c4daf
July 21, 2004
By STEVE LOHR NY Times
The Bush administration plans to announce today a long-term
plan for modernizing the nation's health care system with
information technology, bringing patient records and
prescriptions out of the realm of ink and paper and into
the computer age.
The administration's strategy, presented in a report to be
published today, regards the government's role as one of
mainly setting goals and working with the private sector to
establish product and technology standards so the computer
systems of doctors, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacists
and insurers can efficiently communicate and share
information.
The government, according to the report, will also use its
formidable buying power as the largest purchaser of health
care - through federal Medicare and Medicaid programs - to
accelerate the transition to electronic patient records,
reversing what the report terms "a previous lack of
cohesive federal policies supporting" health information
technology.
"There is an absolutely important role for government,"
Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human
services, said yesterday.
Because the health care industry is so fragmented, Mr.
Thompson said, the government must encourage standards to
reduce the risk of technology investments.
"Then," he added, "we have to demand that the medical
industry invest in technology."
The report, "The Decade of Health Information Technology,"
is being published today at the beginning of a
government-sponsored conference in Washington. It says that
the government should work closely with the private sector
to ensure common product standards for storing electronic
health records, so data can be shared among institutions
and personal information can be kept secure. A product
certification system, the report says, should be
considered.
The government also plans to organize a consortium of
private companies to plan, build and operate health
information networks. A Health Information Technology
Leadership Panel of industry executives and health care
experts will be created to advise the government on the
costs and benefits of health technology, and will report in
the fall. Among other steps, the government will create a
Web site where Medicare beneficiaries can review customized
information about services they have received. A pilot test
of the Web site will be conducted in Indiana this year.
The savings from making the transition to electronic health
records, according to administration officials and health
care experts, could be sizable in terms of both dollars and
lives. The report estimates that if most patient records
were in electronic form, the savings would be about $140
billion a year, or nearly 10 percent of the nation's annual
health care bill.
Besides the cost savings from reduced paper handling, the
automation of an electronic system could sharply reduce
medical errors, which are estimated to be responsible for
45,000 to 98,000 deaths a year - more than breast cancer,
AIDS or motor vehicle accidents, according to the Institute
of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Some of those errors result from simple lapses - a patient
who receives the wrong drug, for instance, when a nurse or
pharmacist misreads an illegible handwritten prescription.
Others result because laboratories' test results are not
immediately sent to doctors to alert them if patients are
reacting badly to drugs.
"Without computer-based patient records, those errors are
not going to be reduced," said Dr. Thomas Handler, a
research director at Gartner, the technology research firm.
The $1.5-trillion-a-year health care industry has not
invested much in information technology, compared with most
businesses. In the health care industry, the investment in
information technology - computer hardware, software and
services - is about $3,000 for each worker, compared with
$7,000 a worker on average for private industry and nearly
$15,000 a worker in banking.
Hospitals and clinics have invested heavily in medical
technology like magnetic resonance imaging machines and
other sophisticated equipment. But most of the investment
in information technology, analysts say, has been on
back-office financial and administrative systems to handle
tasks like billing and collections.
At the clinical level, where employees include doctors and
nurses, adoption has been slow. Only 13 percent of the
nation's more than 6,000 hospitals have any kind of
electronic patient record system.
Cost has been a big hurdle. Most hospitals do not make
money, so they forgo technology investments that seem to
have an uncertain return. And until recently, bedside
technology has often been expensive and cumbersome. The
spread of light, low-cost hand-held computers has changed
that - making it much more practical for the government's
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to promote
standards for ordering and processing electronic
prescriptions.
"We've reached the point where the technology really can
have a big impact," said David Lubinski, managing director
of health care and life sciences at Microsoft.
The government report was prepared by Dr. David J. Brailer,
who was appointed in May as the national coordinator for
health information technology, a new post. Health care
industry experts see his appointment and the government
plan as encouraging steps. But, they note, much will depend
on how forcefully the government pursues its goals and how
effectively the private sector responds.
"You need the big stick of the government and the
innovation and commitment of the private sector," said Neil
de Crescenzo, who heads the health care practice for
I.B.M.'s business consulting services. "And the real test
will be 6, 12 or 18 months down the road. Are the standards
being set and implemented, and are these networks being
built?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/technology/21record.html?ex=1091468171&ei=1&en=2d601c720e5c4daf
, but it has to happen at some point.
