New York City Launches EHR System

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Article Date: 28 Feb 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday announced the launch of a new, $60 million electronic health record system that is intended to improve preventive health, the New York Times reports. The EHR system, which the city has developed over two years, was created with $30 million from the city and about $30 million from the state and federal governments. Two hundred physicians with 200,000 patients have committed to using the EHR system, and the city hopes that by the end of the year, the system will include 1,000 physicians with one million patients, according to Thomas Frieden, the city health commissioner.

The system will include patient medical histories, laboratory results and prescription drug regimens. In addition, the system will provide physicians with updated information through a series of alerts, such as overdue dates on prescriptions or cholesterol checks, as well as information on best practices for the treatment of illnesses. The health department will be able to obtain general health care provider data from the EHR system but will not have access to specific information on individual patients.

For physicians in practices where at least 30% of the patients are either uninsured or on Medicaid, the city will pay for licenses, on-site training, tools to use the software and two years of maintenance and support. Physicians who are eligible for the assistance still will be asked to provide their own computers and contribute $4,000 to the Fund for Public Health in New York for technical support. Frieden said the city wants to ensure that physicians are invested in the system.

New York City physicians who do not meet the eligibility requirement can buy the EHR software from eClinicalWorks. Frieden noted that physician practices likely will see a decrease in productivity for about six months as physicians become familiar with the new technology and transition to electronic records (Santora, New York Times, 2/26).

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