During his presidential campaign, President-Elect Obama said he would allocate $50 billion over five years to support the adoption of standards-based health IT systems and a national health information network.
On Friday, January 09, 2009: President-Elect Barack Obama Calls for All Americans To Have EHRs Within Five Years. This gives the Healthcare Industry a huge leverage over other Industries.
Here is my interpretation of the future of the Health Care Industry:
- EHRs (Electronic Health Records) will be mandated for patient record keeping
- Personal Health Record (PHR) will gain momentum and will govern the way interoperability is being driven
- Interoperability, Clinical Decision Support, Population Health and Quality Measures are the buzz words which will improve care for the years to come
- Health Information Exchange will bring better control over Patient Consent Management
- Certified products will bring standardization for EHRs. Additional features in form of plugins, extensions and “Surprise” features will be the reason to choose an EHR.
- Technology improvements will allow Privacy and Security policies to improve over the processes.
- Harmonization of efforts will allow consolidation of similar standards
- Coordinated Quality Care will be the norm towards transforming healthcare in the US.
Nainil Chheda,MS is the Knowledge Research Specialist at eClinicalWorks LLC, Member of ASTM, AMIA, AIIM, PDF/H, EHRVA, HITSP, AIS and ACM, and a practicing researcher on Healthcare Informatics.
