July 21, 2004 (Computerworld) -- The Department of Health and Human Services today unveiled a 10-year plan to create a new national health information infrastructure, including an electronic health record (EHR) for every American and a new network to link health records nationwide.

 

HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a statement at the HHS Summit on Health Information Technology in Washington that "electronic health information will provide a quantum leap in patient power, doctor power and effective health care. We can't wait any longer."

 

Thompson estimated that adoption of EHR systems nationally could save 10% of the nation's current annual $1.7 trillion health care bill. He also said that EHRs would improve privacy, better protect medical records and decrease medical errors while reducing administrative costs. Patients would own and control access to their own medical records, he said.

 

Dr. Brent James, vice president for research at Intermountain Health Care in Salt Lake City, which currently maintains EHRs for 1 million patients, said he believes the savings from streamlining the health care system with EHR could eventually amount to $400 billion per year.

 

Trace Devanny, president of Cerner Corp., a health care IT vendor in North Kansas City, Mo., said the use of EHRs could cut costs from the health care system by providing doctors anywhere with access to information about any patient electronically. That would help eliminate duplicate tests and treatments when a patient visits an out-of-town physician and would improve the quality of care, Devanny said.

 

But generating those savings could come with a hefty price tag, according to Mike Kappel, senior vice president of strategic planning at McKesson Corp., a San Francisco-based health care IT vendor. Kappel said he "would not find it impossible to believe" that the cost for a national, networked EHR system could hit $10 billion.

 

According to Kappel, the U.S. government has budgeted only $50 million this year and $100 million next year for health care IT, meaning the costs associated with the new systems could be pushed out to doctors and hospitals, with the financial benefits flowing to health insurance companies.

 

David Barnhart, CIO at Wuesthoff Health System Inc. in Rockledge, Fla., agreed that health care providers will likely absorb the brunt of the costs and said that HHS needs to find a way to "incentivize" providers to embrace EHR.