The Wall Street Journal (1/22, Goldstein, Zhang) reports, "President Barack Obama has pledged to 'wield technology's wonders to raise healthcare's quality and lower its cost,' but many in the field warn that rushing the process of digitizing patients' records could lead to wasteful spending." Commenting on "a fiscal-stimulus bill that includes $20 billion for healthcare information technology" and was unveiled last week by House Democrats, John Glaser, chief information officer for Partners HealthCare, cautions against bringing "in too much money too fast." He stated that doing so may "not only waste it, but set us back." John Halamka, chief information officer at Harvard Medical School and chairman of a national standards-setting body, adds that "many states have yet to put in place regional systems to handle" such information flows. In addition, according to one Republican congressional aide, the minority "doesn't support spending money on technology that isn't yet developed." Furthermore, "many patients remain wary" of privacy violations, and "there is still disagreement in Congress over the best way to safeguard privacy."
House committee calls for $20 billion for health IT. Government Health IT (1/21, Lipowicz) reported, "The House Ways and Means Committee is calling for $20 billion in spending to encourage the adoption of health information technology, including payments of as much as $65,000 to physicians who can demonstrate that they are using electronic data." The Health IT for Economic and Clinical Health Act, which is expected "to be included in an economic stimulus package," is aimed at advancing "the use of health IT, including electronic health records," committee chairman Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) said. Doctors who "can show they are 'meaningfully utilizing health IT, such as through the reporting of quality measures,'" would be eligible to receive "payments of $40,000 to $65,000," under the measure. In addition, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT would be charged with "developing technical standards by 2010 for a nationwide exchange of health data." The bill also addresses privacy and security issues by strengthening "laws to protect health information from misuse."
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