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Policy

Friday, January 09, 2009

Obama Calls for All Americans To Have EHRs Within Five Years

In a speech pushing his economic stimulus plan on Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama called for all U.S. residents to have electronic health records within five years, Health Data Management reports.

Obama said, "To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its costs, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America's medical records are computerized." He added, "This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests. But it won't just save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system."

During his presidential campaign, Obama said he would allocate $50 billion over five years to support the adoption of standards-based health IT systems and a national health information network (Goedert, Health Data Management, 1/8).

Obama's economic stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, would require nearly $800 billion in federal funding, Healthcare IT News reports.

Timetable

Obama hopes to begin moving the economic stimulus package through Congress as early as his first week in office (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 1/8).

On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that committee hearings on the package will begin next week, followed by mark ups. Hoyer said that the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Appropriations Committee will hold hearings and mark ups on the package in the next few weeks (Epstein, CQ Today, 1/7).

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she plans to hold a floor vote on the package during the last week of January (Shear/Fletcher, Washington Post, 1/9). In addition, the House will remain in session during the weeklong Presidents Day recess in the event that Congress has not passed the package by that time, Pelosi said (Bourge/Friedman, CongressDaily, 1/8).

Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Thursday said that he expects the committee to begin mark ups on the package during the week after the inauguration (Rogers, The Politico, 1/9).

Reader Comments:
  • 3
  • 01/13/2009
  • Ke Olcer

The Constitution's 4th Amendment guarantees people the right to be secure in the persons, paper, homes and effects. What is not more private than our personal medical records? We must oppose the creation of the National Health Information Network(NHIN) and electronic health records so long as they lack adequate privacy provisions. Patients must have the right to opt out of health information exchanges and segment their medical information if they choose to participate. Without these provisions, we will face the worse of all worlds with employers, insurers, and marketers able to easily access our private medical information and use this information against us in employment, insurance, and financial matters. Why do many members of Congress actively support the NHIN? Their health care is paid by the taxpayer, so they do not have a clue as to the problems that will arise from computerized medical records. Let's start by supporting Patient Privacy Rights: http://www.patientprivacyrights.org

  • 2
  • 01/12/2009
  • Douglas Diedrich

So how does one make the size and cost of health care more palatable? Certainly as President Obama has suggested reducing medical error would be create a huge savings. Likely, after factoring in all the parties that have to pay for the medication error, you're easily talking about saving billions per year. I think an excellent start might begin by viewing the www.drugindexsafetysystems.com. There are other examples of good drug dispensing solutions in the marketplace already, such as the Pyxis system from Cardinal Health and McKesson's ROBOTRx to eliminate medication error. Small steps with huge returns.

  • 1
  • 01/12/2009
  • Linda Ferris

I have a problem when my entire medical history will appear on any computer, either in the US or another country. There is so much computer identity fraud now that this will only provide more fodder for anyone who is so inclined. The info between a patient and a Dr. should be private and not available to just anyone. Will US citizens input this material or will the work be outsourced as my hospital's medical records are already. We have outsourced our IRS returns. I think that putting this information on line is not in the best interest of the patient and we must respect the first oath of a physician and that is: "First, do no harm." There have already been serious breeches in computer information and this will give those who wish to persue a career in identity theft a complete history of any person that is entered into such a system and I assume all insurance policies and numbers too. I do not find the benefits of this program outweighing the RISKS.



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