Health IT as pork?
The lead editorial in today’s Chicago Tribune talks about a proposed “expansion of health-care entitlements” in the economic stimulus blll.
According to the Trib: “The House version of the stimulus package would … shower $20 billion on computer experts to help doctors convert to electronic medical records. That will create jobs but probably not quickly enough to make a difference in this struggling economy.”
To me, the word “shower” suggests an undeserved windfall. Yes, there are risks of wasting $20 billion on a poor implementation of health IT, but are people really seeing this as a giveaway simply meant to create work? This is about reining in runaway healthcare spending and, ultimately, saving lives, right?
Right?
Right! It’s all about having better, more comprehensive information supporting clinical assessment, for the right patient, for the right provider, at the right time. Having better information could reduce the incidence of redundant testing (read.. lower costs to the patient) as a result of not having the information available, among other reasons.Of course, there will always be less than optimal choices for technology/software, but the overall goal (proven by recent studies) is to improve patient outcomes.