In a recent interview with Information Week, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal spoke about health IT's potential to help facilitate the overhaul of the U.S. health care system and boost regional health data exchanges.
Blumenthal said "there is a growing acceptance of the inevitability of electronic health systems to exchange information." He added that he expects electronic health record adoption to "increase at a steady pace over the next five or 10 years."
Blumenthal also called health IT implementation a "preparatory phase, laying the groundwork" for national health care reform efforts by improving information management capacity. Blumenthal said, "If health care reform gets passed, having invested in EHRs before the bill was enacted and implemented will give us a head start."
In addition, Blumenthal discussed the challenges and prospects for health information exchanges, which he called a "core for capability for an effective health system."
He acknowledged that some health care providers might be reluctant to exchange patient data over competition concerns. However, Blumenthal said, "The goal of our policies is to make it easy to exchange health information and to create a market for the exchange of information by giving hospitals and doctors incentives to be meaningful users, including the exchange of information as a key component" (Kolbasuk McGee, Information Week, 7/2).