Both the House and Senate versions of the economic stimulus package include $20 billion for electronic medical records, a sum expected to spur the conversion to save costs, improve the quality of care and add information technology jobs, especially in the San Franciso area. While a relatively small part of President Obama's roughly $900 billion plan to jump-start the economy, the funds amount to the largest infusion of cash the health IT industry has ever seen.
Google Inc. is teaming with International Business Machines Corp. to allow patients to add data generated from home-health monitoring products. The companies said software developed by IBM, with consumers' permission, can shift the data into a personal health record in Google Health, the search giant's service for helping consumers manage and store their health information online. Other software lets the patient transfer the information from there to an electronic medical record kept by healthcare providers.
Officials with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services acknowledge they've had trouble with a new $64.2 million computer system that handles Medicaid services. Glitches with the automated system caused a backlog of claims, preventing the state from processing some prior authorizations for therapies and medical equipment. The agency has been unable to process about 10% of its claims for prior authorization within the 20-day time period required under state law, and some requests have taken four times longer to be approved.
As the Obama administration prepares to spend $20 billion to speed creation of electronic health records, a study has found that information technology efforts so far aren't sufficient to drive the change that's needed in healthcare. The study from the National Research Council concluded that too much emphasis is placed on automating processes, and recommends more focus on how technology can be used to improve outcomes of care by providing physicians and other clinical staffers better information to help them make decisions.
U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) will reintroduce a bill that would create a trust fund to pay physicians for patients who create personal health records. The proposal would require that the Department of Health and Human Services establish regulations for Web-based PHRs, such as making possible the exchange of health data with other sources and providing de-identified data for public health analysis and research.
The Veterans Affairs Department has agreed to pay veterans $20 million as part of the settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed after a data security breach in 2006. Veterans were exposed to possible identity theft when the VA lost their personal health information. Veterans will be compensated upon proving emotional distress or expenses paid for credit monitoring.