Electronic Health Records

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced award of a $100,000 grant to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) to support the a pilot project provision to  provide a comprehensive, standardized electronic health record (EHR) software to the health care community.

The project represents a step toward HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson’s goal of promoting the use of electronic health records in order to improve the quality of care provided to Americans. President Bush last month established a national goal of assuring that most Americans have electronic health records within 10 years. Secretary Thompson is pushing to speed up efforts to establish a national, interoperable health information infrastructure that would allow quick, reliable and secure access to information needed for patient care, while protecting patient privacy.

“Health information technology promises huge benefits for all Americans, including higher quality care at lower costs,” Secretary Thompson said. “We’re moving aggressively on many fronts to harness the power of health information technology to improve health care in this country. This new pilot project represents a step forward as we encourage the adoption of electronic medical records.”

With this press release back in May of 2004 the government started the push to have patients medical records stored and filed electronically.

With the implementation of the  American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) signed into law by President Obama in February 2009,  the Federal Government has been has been offering Federal Matching Funds to states for Electronic Health Record Incentives Program.

Since then approximately half the states have received their funds with six states getting theirs as recently as March 24, 2010.

The Federal Government feels that the Medical Industry would be greatly improved by using electronic documents. How do you feel about it?  Would your company work better and more efficiently with electronic document management? I would love to hear your comments.