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Electronic Health Records: Blah, Blah, Blah
By: John R. Graham
12.21.2009
One of the ways that the government is going to make the delivery of health care more “efficient”, the saying goes, is to subsidize the acquisition of electronic health records (EHRs) that adhere to federal standards.
There are a couple of problems with this. Many are rightly concerned that the federal government will end up having way too much information about our health status. Another big problem, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, is that the record of adoption of EHR by both private and government buyers does not suggest success.
An example of this just crossed my path. Back in September 2000, the Canadian and provincial governments committed to a nationally consistent EHR-system. The province of Ontario, which runs a government-monopoly, single-payer, health system for its 12 million residents, got to work developing a province-wide EHR system, “eHealth”.
Under state monopoly, you wouldn’t think that would be too difficult. Well, last October, the provincial Auditor-General published a report detailing the project’s $1 billion cost-overruns and history of “no-bid” contracts. To recover from the scandal, the province just appointed a veteran IT executive, who insists that Ontarians not give up on the promise of EHRs!
Well, the people of Ontario have to wait months for access to specialist medical care. I suppose they won’t mind waiting a few more years, and wasting a few more billion dollars, on a government IT bureaucracy.
This blog post originally appeared on State House Call.
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