President-elect Barack Obama's plan to link up doctors and hospitals with new information technology is imperiled by a seemingly intractable dispute over how to protect the privacy of electronic medical records. Lawmakers, caught in a crossfire of lobbying by the healthcare industry and consumer groups, have been unable to agree on privacy safeguards that would allow patients to control the use of their medical records. Congressional leaders plan to provide $20 billion for such technology in an economic stimulus bill.
Five years after President Bush announced plans for Americans' health records to go digital, only one in five doctors has converted from paper to electronic record keeping. But when Barack Obama takes over the White House, this could change. During his campaign for president, Obama promised a $50 billion investment to store patient records electronically and his economic stimulus package is expected to contain two years worth of funding. The money would be distributed to hospitals and doctors through grants and through higher reimbursement rates when serving Medicare patients. And for doctors who do not make the switch, Obama will propose lowering reimbursements from government-subsidized healthcare programs.
Hawaii doctors plan are starting online house calls in the nation's first large-scale program of its kind that some believe could be a groundbreaking step in healthcare. The service is being provided in Hawaii by Hawaii Medical Service Association under a licensing agreement with Boston-based American Well. It is available for a fee to all Hawaii residents, including the uninsured and non-HMSA members.
SonoSite, Inc. has introduced the S-Women's Health ultrasound tool. The newest product in SonoSite's S Series product line is a "custom-designed solution to enable women's health clinicians to provide comprehensive care in the patient exam room," according to a release. The system is configured to work with four broadband transducers to provide high-resolution superficial, abdominal, vascular, and pelvic imaging.
The 2009 conference NextMed: Design for/the Well Being is scheduled for January 19-22, 2009 in Long Beach, CA. The annual conference examines emerging data-centered technologies for medical care and education.
A $10 billion investment in health information technology as part of a planned economic recovery package would create or retain 212,105 jobs in one year, according to the Washington, DC-based think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. The ITIF endorsed health IT spending, along with spending on broadband networks and a smart power grid, as components of a larger economic stimulus package Congress is expected to introduce. ITIF President Robert Atkinson said the organization does not necessarily advocate the amounts of spending that it analyzed. but the analysis of the job-creation effects could be extrapolated to a larger or smaller amount of spending.