Is Stimulus Money Enough

[#1]

I read an insightful article "Is Stimulus Money Enough?" . The gist of the article is that money has not been the only obstacle to the adoption of electronic medical records. Ownership and commitment from the top down are required; you cannot cut corners with big bang implementations and you must factor in ongoing training, workflow improvements, and support in the total cost of ownership. All of these make the implementations challenging.

Automation in our hospitals has been a slow progression with many facilities not prepared to electronically gather information let alone exchange that patient health information with providers. Some hospitals will choose to be late adopters, but some may remain behind due to financial or people resource constraints. Vendors will be challenged to meet customer demand as there are not enough skilled resources to get everyone automated to a fully electronic state by 2014. A few hospitals may close or become extensions of larger facilities because they cannot afford the cost of operations; the use of telemedicine and remote access to systems enables a different approach to care in those communities.

However, with stimulus dollars for physicians available, physicians who have had positive experiences with automation will want to adopt an EHR. Physicians will pressure hospitals to enable the exchange of patient health information. The loss of their own incentive in combination with pressure from the physicians affected will pressure hospitals to demonstrate progress towards the ability to exchange patient information with the physicians. The government will continue to push the effort to attain the adoption in order to gather data that identifies what works and what is unnecessary or should be included to provide quality care.  As the ARRA details unfold, the automation expectations for each year may be adjusted, but the objective to automate patient health information is not a passing whim. ARRA is the beginning of a new era for healthcare. EHRs are the wave of the future. It may take longer, but we will see significant progress by 2014.

Here's a link to the original article:  

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/232880/topic/WS_HLM2_TEC/Is-Stimulus-Money-Enough.html

[#2]

HealthLeaders has published its first Roundtable entitled, "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:  What Hospitals Need to Do Now."   (p. RT1-6) and on p. 49 another article entitled, "Where's the Value?" questions the value of EMR systems...stating that for them to be worthwhile, they should be accessible to the user, adequately funded, and used to create evidence-based pathways. 

I think both of the articles are worth a read!