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Records Management: E-Health Records in Five Years
Four years ago George Bush said that the US would adopt a universal electronic health record program by 2014. The Obama administration is targeting the same date, and hopes to target electronic health records as an area that will spur the growth of new jobs.
Obama said that “This will cut waste, eliminate red tape, and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests”. It is also expected to save lives by reducing the numbers of medical treatment errors.
It will be a big project, given that so far only 8% of US hospitals and 17% of the 800,000 physicians in the US have made the conversion from paper to electronic docs. Partly the switch over has been slow because of concerns around patient privacy, partly because of not enough properly skilled people have been available to build out the infrastructure of the system, and probably also because the initial outlay in cost to adopt the new system will be huge.
Short term there will be a huge cost, but longer term the saving could be much greater. Various studies from RAND, Harvard and the Commonwealth Fund estimate that a lower bound on moving to electronic health records as a nation could set us back $75 billion over ten years and possibly much more. But on the flip side, once the system is in place, a study by Brailer estimates that it could save the industry $200 to $300 billion per year due to efficiencies.
Given the backing by Obama and the cash he’s requesting to start new programs to grow jobs, it might be time that the idea finally gains momentum.
