Obama wants electronic medical records in 5 years

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Obama Wants E-Health Records In Five Years

President-elect says medical information on all Americans should be digitized by

2014.

By K.C. , InformationWeek

Jan. 12, 2009

URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212800199

President-elect Barack Obama said he wants the federal government to invest in

electronic health records so all medical records are digitized within five

years.

Obama announced the plans and the deadline during a speech at Mason

University in Fairfax, Va., on Thursday.

" This will cut waste, eliminate red tape, and reduce the need to repeat

expensive medical tests, " he said, adding that the switch also would save lives

by reducing the number of errors in medicine.

Since President W. Bush called for health records to be stored

electronically by 2014, Obama's announcement confirms his administration's plans

to continue pushing for that deadline.

However, Obama's speech indicated he wants all Americans' health records to be

stored electronically, while Bush specified that " most " Americans' health

information should be stored electronically. The Office of the National

Coordinator for Health Information Technology assumed President Bush's statement

meant he wanted more than half of American health records to be stored

electronically.

Obama mentioned electronic health records as part of his plan to overhaul the

economy. He did not give details about the amount of funding he thinks the

federal government should spend or how it should be disbursed. It's also unclear

exactly what health information he wants stored electronically. For example,

some software allows doctors' notes and prescriptions to be entered and stored

in electronic form. Other programs offer pull-down menus for tests and diagnosis

but lack features for storing doctors' observations and notes on smaller

details, such as health care providers' conversations with patients.

Former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, Obama's choice for Secretary of the Health and

Human Services Department, also indicated strong support for health information

technology during his Senate confirmation hearings last week. He said it was an

" embarrassment " that the United States lacks an interoperable system for

electronic health records.

A similar, multibillion dollar effort in the U.K. has shown mixed results to

date.