Technology CEO Council Recommends Implementation of Electronic Health Records System To Reduce Costs, USA

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Article Date: 14 Oct 2005 - 1:00 PDT

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The Technology CEO Council, a coalition of technology company officials founded in 1989, on Wednesday released a report that said health care quality "suffers" and costs have increased because the industry has not implemented an electronic health records system, USA Today reports. The council -- which includes Hewlett-Packard, Unisys, NCR, IBM, Dell, Motorola and Applied Materials and currently is focused on health care costs -- also lobbied lawmakers, business leaders and the health care industry to implement an EHR system to streamline the exchange of medical information among physicians, patients, laboratories, hospitals and health insurers. According to the council, the practice would decrease health care costs by reducing duplicative tests and administrative costs and increasing quality as information is shared on the most effective treatments, medications and surgeries. The council also said that:

• The federal government should help develop standards for health care technology products;
  
  
• Companies should base decisions on which health insurers and providers to hire, in part, by their ability to measure quality and their use of information technology; and
  
  
• States should offer physicians and other health care providers financial incentives to implement IT.

"It's time to modernize the health care system," Craig Barrett, chair of Intel and the council, said (Appleby, USA Today, 10/13).

"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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