The politics of EHR implementation

I've pretty much kept my distance from the right-wing noise machine. They don't often talk about my professional interests, and when they do, it's not usually cited by a colleague or fellow academic.But this morning, someone I respect shared this screed from Michelle Malkin on the great EDBA listserv - which I'd always equated with intelligent discussion of applied emergency medicine informatics.So, let's dive into Malkin's piece on "Obama's crony," the CEO of Epic Systems:The stimulus law provided a whopping $19 billion in “incentives” (read: subsidies) to force hospitals and medical professionals into converting from paper to electronic record-keeping systems.I take issue with the past tense "provided" because these $19 billion will be allocated over many years, and only a small fraction has been given out already. And while $19 billion seems "whopping", healthcare spending was $2.7 trillion in 2011, and Medicare spending alone was $557 billion that year.Obamacare bureaucrats claimed the government’s EMR mandate would save money and modernize health care.This had nothing to do with "Obamacare" and in fact I don't think that term had been coined when the stimulus bill passed in February 2009. Lots of people thought, and still think, that EMR will save money in the long run (and moving from paper to electronic pretty much modernizes care, by definition). And of course, there's the reasonable expectation that patient care will be improved, too.Af...
Source: Blogborygmi - Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: Source Type: blogs