HHS to promote low-cost electronic health record software packages including the VA's VistA

If I were a proprietary health IT vendor, the following bolded passage in the new Healthcare Bill (PDF <a href="http://finance.senate.gov/press/Bpress/2009press/prb101909.pdf">here</a>) would make me a bit nervous:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SEC. 1102.</span> ENCOURAGING MEANINGFUL USE OF ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS.<br /><br />(a) STUDY.—The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall conduct a study of methods that can be employed by qualified health benefits plans offered through an exchange to encourage increased meaningful use of electronic health records by health care providers, including—<br /><br /><blockquote>(1) payment systems established by qualified health benefit plans that provide higher rates of reimbursement for health care providers that engage in meaningful use of electronic health records; and<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">(2) </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">promotion of low-cost electronic health record software packages that are available for use by health care providers, including software packages that are available to health care providers through the Veterans Administration.</span></blockquote><br /><br />The VA system, VistA/CPRS ("computerized patient record system"), was developed with taxpayer money and is freely available. A free working demo is downloadable <a href="http://www1.va.gov/cprsdemo/">here</a> (Windows only).<br /><br />This represents a needed "public option" for healthcare IT, the estimates of cost of adoption of proprietary systems now at somewhere between $20 and $50 billion dollars, give or take. (I believe the actual figure to be far higher due to IT sector dyscompetence in HIT as I wrote at my post "<a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/10/fuzzy-math-rising-costs-in-governments.html">Fuzzy Math Indeed</a>.") To put that figure in context, $50 billion is enough to build approximately five hundred shiny new 100-bed hospitals, or one hundred 500-bed hospitals, at ~$1 million per bed.<br /><br />Entrepreneurial companies have sprung up to adopt it for the private healthcare sector such as <a href="http://worldvista.sourceforge.net/About/indexworldvista.html">WorldVista</a>. They probably won't be charging the multimillion dollar rates that the private HIT sector does, and the quality will likely be higher.<br /><br />-- SS

HHS to promote low-cost electronic health record software packages including the VA's VistA

If I were a proprietary health IT vendor, the following bolded passage in the new Healthcare Bill (PDF here ) would make me a bit nervous: S...

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