Another round of stimulus packages are being laid on the table by President Elect Obama, and Digital Health Records (DHR) has made the top of the list.
For the last four years, Congress has attempted to pass some type of package that would include funds to create an infrastructure for uniform DHR.
The adoption of DHR will be costly with estimates running anywhere from $75- $100 billion to implement. The adoption of DHR has received broad support from diverse groups, including hospitals, Pharmacy Benefit Management companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and even Ralph Nader’s PERG, but it also has a broad group of privacy and civil liberties groups against it.
It will also be difficult to put into practice with only about 8% of the nation's 5,000 hospitals and 17% of its 800,000 physicians currently using computerized recordkeeping systems.
Even with all these obstacles, this is one proposal that has significant merit and its implementation has the potential to significantly lower the cost of healthcare, reducing the number of redundant and unnecessary tests, and giving clinicians a full picture of a patient’s health.
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