Bush Proves Strong Proponent of Digital Records
By Paul Taylor,
Assistant Editor
Well, the picture of the Bush administration’s true commitment to national health care just got a whole lot clearer, by George.
In his first major appearance since the inauguration, President Bush made a big splash and a lot of friends in the health care industry on Jan. 27, spending the day at the Cleveland Clinic extolling the virtues of electronic health records and prescriptions.
By encouraging doctors and hospitals to make the switch of their medical records from paper to electronic files, a move whose efficiencies could result in a reduction in medical costs of up to 20 percent, Bush said, quoting health analysts. The alternative record-keeping system could “help change medicine and save money and save lives,” he affirmed.
The clinic is helping to develop an information technology standard for medical records that Bush and proponents say can liberate doctors and other medical personnel from the crush of paper that contains most patient information. The electronic files ostensibly would give doctors instant access to potentially lifesaving information, including medical histories, lab test results and medications prescribed. Additionally, administrative costs would be reduced, as would the likelihood of medical errors that can occur with the manual transferring of information.
But the President’s actions didn’t end with his words, although they were both good and plenty. The nation’s chief executive even paid homage to nurses, saying, “I want to thank you for your compassion and I want to thank you for lending your enormous skills and talents to savings lives.”
On the same day of the President’s appearance at the Cleveland Clinic, the Bush administration sent a letter to Congress, saying it intended to restore $50 million to the 2005 budget for the office of the administration’s national health information technology coordinator, Dr. David J. Brailer. In November, Congress deleted the $50 million for Dr. Brailer’s office in a move that was widely seen as confirmation that the administration’s support for health information technology was mostly lip service. The administration has the authority to move $50 million from elsewhere in the budget of the Health and Human Services Department to Dr. Brailer’s office and, while the move requires Congressional approval, that is not seen as a major hurdle, given the White House’s insistence.
The money will be used to pay for pilot programs that demonstrate the advantages of using electronic records, to develop technology standards for sharing health information while protecting patient privacy and to study policies to encourage investment. It would bring to $100 million the amount earmarked by the Bush administration for this effort. The proposed 2006 national budget includes an increase to $125 million in the effort to link health care—finally—with the Digital Age.
The numbers bear the need for transition out: Despite spending more than $1.6 trillion on health care as a nation, there are still serious concerns about high costs, avoidable medical errors, administrative inefficiencies and poor coordination. At the end of the 1990s, according to a report issued by the White House, most American industries were spending about $8,000 per worker for IT, but the health care industry was investing only about $1,000 per worker.
All of this can be positively impacted by the incorporation of health information technology, Bush said, while noting that the Cleveland Clinic had already received two grants from HHS totaling $3 million to help further develop “this fantastic technological development.
“One of the things that I’m really excited about is that we’re just beginning to learn about the great potential of information technology,” Bush said. “And I think what you’re witnessing is a dialogue on a subject that is going to change our lives for the better and that’s why I’m excited about it.”
© 2005. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
