\r\nIn general, health-care institutions are reluctant to transform processes, which would in essence require data maintained in paper files to be manually entered into electronic systems. That data typically spans years and many institutions are not willing to dedicate the time, resources and dollars to such a task.
"This is not about the future; it's about adopting the present," Gingrich said, pointing to proven examples of technology serving consumer needs, such as Google, United Postal Service, Federal Express, Amazon.com and eBay. "The question is, 'How long [politicians] will be too dumb to get there.'"
At times, though, the federal government does recognize the challenges associated with electronic health records and tries to offset the expense. In October, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded more than $22.3 million to 16 grantees to implement health IT systems. That's a step in the right direction, but until such grants are farther reaching and supported by mandates, health care may remain behind the technological curve.
To expedite adoption, health-care organizations can educate institutions about where they need to be, and VARs can provide the technology to make it happen. Specifically, Gingrich said, the private sector needs to communicate urgency to institutions, lay out the base of a model bill for Congress to follow, and create a permissive--not coercive--system.
"We are crazy if we don't set as a national goal all Americans having e-health records by December 2006," he said. "The longer we have paper records, the more people will die, the more money will be spent and the more vulnerable we will be. We need to make the rules of the game. I never ask anyone to trust Congress, but government has to catch up, and [industry] telling Congress what works and what doesn\'t is important."
Autor: Jill R. Aitoro
Quelle: VARBusiness, 11.10.2005
