NT Times Looks at Health Industry's Efforts To Adopt Information Technology, Including Electronic Medical Records

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Medical News Today 24 Feb 2005

New York Times Looks at Health Industry's Efforts To Adopt Information

Technology, Including Electronic Medical Records

The health care industry must agree to technical standards for electronic health

records by this summer or the federal government likely will " put out a

mandate, " National Health Information Technology Coordinator Brailer said

at an industry conference on Wednesday, the... New York Times reports. Brailer

said the technical standards must allow physicians and specialists from

different health clinics and hospitals to access patient medical records,

regardless of whether different computer systems are used. In addition, he said

that technical standards developed by the health care industry likely would

prove more flexible and open to improvement than standards mandated by the

federal government. According to the Times, Brailer is " still wrestling with

just how large and how direct a role the government should take " in efforts to

implement EHRs nationwide. Agreement on technical standards for EHRs is a " vital

step " to a nationwide system, the Times reports. Brailer said, " We've got to

take the risk out of purchasing " EHRs, adding that technical standards would

help address concerns from physicians and hospitals that software purchased to

implement EHRs will become outdated in the near future. According to Brailer,

early efforts by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information

Technology, the group charged with the development of technical standards for

EHRs, have shown " great promise. " However, Brailer said that the " hardest

problem " remains small physician practices, which could " bring this effort to

its knees. " Brailer said that he has studied whether incentives -- such as

federal loans, grants and increased payments from Medicare and private health

insurers -- would encourage physicians to implement EHRs. He added, " We're

banking on this, until it is clear that you can't do it " (Lohr, New York Times,

2/19).

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