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Obama e-health plan: Health IT leaders weigh in

26.02.2009
President Obama, in his joint speech to Congress this week, emphasized that he wants electronic health records to be established for all Americans over the next five years. His recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act earmarked US$19 billion for health information technology spending, $17 billion of which is designated for incentive payments for Electronic Health Record use beginning in 2011. To date, only about 25% of the nation's 5,000 hospitals have rolled out electronic health records systems, and only a small fraction of physician practices have done the same.

The EHR funds will be controlled by the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), which has discretionary use over US$2 billion of the funds.

The legislation also allocates, among other things, $85 million for health technology investments to the Indian Health Service, $1.5 billion for Community Health Centers and $50 million to HHS to improve its technology security.

Computerworld spoke with three health technology experts from private corporations and the IT vendor side to get their take on the new bill and whether the billions being spent will succeed in establishing EHRs.

The three experts are:

Dr. Charles Kennedy, senior vice president for Health IT at Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., the country's largest health benefits provider. WellPoint provides health coverage to about 34 million members through its subsidiaries, primarily under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield name. Kennedy is a founding member of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology and a board member of the National eHealth Collaborative.