Meeting health IT goals is slow going
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There are numerous "gaps and barriers" to implementing the health information technology reforms envisioned by the federal health IT act of 2009, according to a new report issued by the Bipartisan Policy Center, based in Washington, D.C.
The act, officially known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (or HITECH), earmarked about $30 billion to be spent on improving health care outcomes by spurring health providers to use information technology in meaningful ways.
Those "meaningful ways" include using electronic records instead of paper, creating better avenues of patient-provider communication and using electronic bookkeeping to coordinate care and improve access. Most of the money is geared toward providers that accept Medicare and Medicaid patients and reimbursements.
But in the nearly three years since the HITECH Act was signed into law as part of the larger stimulus bill, and "despite the introduction of IT to nearly every other aspect of modern life, the U.S. health care system remains largely paper-based," according to the study, called "Transforming Health Care: The Role of Health IT."
Advocates of a broad push toward health industry information technology say it will help improve outcomes -- that is, improve patient health -- while possibly reducing the cost of care. But the "gaps and barriers" in the existing infrastructure are preventing us from finding out if this is truly the case, the report says.
The largest barrier may be the lack of a robust health records exchange, which would allow providers across the spectrum -- doctors, independent specialists, hospitals -- to more freely trade information about patients, including recent procedures, allergies, patient preferences, current prescriptions, pertinent lab and diagnostic imaging, and other data.
There are many reasons for the slow adoption of broad health IT systems, not the least of which is the sheer complexity of designing systems that will allow multiple health care providers, operating on different hardware and software platforms, to access and send information to each other.
First Published February 1, 2012 12:00 am
