Thompson Launches “Decade of Health Information Technology” | CMS | 7.21.04
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today released the first outline of a 10-year plan to transform the delivery of health care by building a new health information infrastructure, including electronic health records and a new network to link health records nationwide.
“America needs to move much faster to adopt information technology in our health care system,” Secretary Thompson said as he released the action report ordered by President Bush. “Electronic health information will provide a quantum leap in patient power, doctor power, and effective health care. We can’t wait any longer.”
Also see:
- Report to promote e-records for health care | USA Today | 7.21.04
- Government Wants to Bring Health Records Into Computer Age | NYT | 7.21.04
Ask a clinician about “digital” and you may get an answer that involves the wearing of a glove and some lubricant; however in this context the digital waning refers to handwritten healthcare documentation that is often illegible, incomplete, incomprehensible, and never in a form where content is easily transferable in real time to other practitioners. Healthcare content is inextricably bound to both presentation and delivery modalities. Here digital waxing refers to the movement of content–rich healthcare information that is presentation and delivery independent, or perhaps transparent.
Historically, the handwritten record or the heavily proprietary (legacy) healthcare IT infrastructure is more like the single–use glove—destined for senescences. The legacy mindset that a particular patient record is for singular or limited use by a particular pracititioner and always contextual to the origination of the record is the equivalent of stuffing money in the matress. Information is as much a healthcare currency as the Medicare budget—and the flowing of informational currency will be good medicine for the practitioners, consumers, and customers of healthcare (albeit, ever mindful of HIPAAesque constraints).