Health

To broadly examine the potential health and financial benefits of health information technology (HIT), this paper compares health care with the use of IT in other industries. It estimates potential savings and costs of widespread adoption of electronic

Effective electronic medical care record (EMR) systems will make a critical contribution to health care transformation. However, we need to know more about the total costs of EMRs and the ways in which they will interact with existing health care syste

The current fascination with electronic medical records (EMRs) is not new. For decades, vendors have capitalized on this enthusiasm. But hospitals and clinics have ended up with little to show for their large outlays. Indeed, computing at a typical hos

National policymakers are considering whether to make major long-term investments in electronic medical record (EMR) systems. The matter of rising health care costs is never far from any health care debate, and the prospect for EMR systems to decrease

We conducted case studies of fourteen solo or small-group primary care practices using electronic health record (EHR) software from two vendors. Initial EHR costs averaged $44,000 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) provider, and ongoing costs averaged $8,5

Although there is growing consensus that health information technology (HIT) will be critical to improving health care quality and reducing costs, physicians’ investments in technology remain limited. As the largest single U.S. purchaser of healt

Medicare policies could have an important impact on physicians’ decisions to use clinical information technology (IT) to better manage patient care. Sheera Rosenfeld and colleagues conclude that Medicare should pay physicians for the costs of ado

Provisions of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 are intended to foster electronic prescribing by requiring standards for interoperability and by permitting third parties to offset implementation costs. Alt

The fragmentation of our health care system, our need to accommodate the diversity of existing health information exchanges, the lack of consistent implementation of clinical information standards, and the need to protect patients’ privacy and ma

Few U.S. physicians use outpatient electronic health records (EHRs), although it appears that most would like to begin. The main barriers are not technical, because adoption rates in other countries are high. The biggest barrier is reimbursement, becau

The MidSouth eHealth Alliance is developing a comprehensive health information infrastructure supporting providers in three Tennessee counties. Success in the alliance’s first year is the result of sustained leadership, a systematic assessment of

MedsInfo-ED is a proof-of-concept clinical data exchange project that uses prescription claims data to deliver patient medication history to emergency department clinicians at the point of care. This patient safety initiative, while limited in scope an