Enabling EHR take-up in the USA
Dr David Brailer, National Co-ordinator for Health Information
Technology, describes how the USA’s Department of Health and Human Services
is shaping a market environment for the country’s adoption of interoperable
electronic healthcare records.
ABSTRACT The United States has set itself the goal of enabling a
consumer-driven healthcare market that is transparent, responsive to
consumer needs and organised around the user of healthcare services.
Widespread use of electronic healthcare records (EHRs), so that health and
care information can follow the patient, is key to its achievement.
To this end, the United States has focused on two primary challenges:
achieving EHR interoperability and broadening healthcare-IT adoption. For
the health-IT marketplace to work appropriately, both the demand side and
the supply side require attention.
On the demand side, the United States is engaging in strategies that will
result in more diligent buyers; and on the supply side, a uniform
architecture for healthcare information is being assembled in collaboration
with the private sector.
It is envisaged that multiple nationwide health-information-network
services will compete to connect different brands of EHRs, much as multiple
carriers connect different brands of mobile phones. The Federal Government
is also collaborating with industry to develop specific, practical and
useful standards to support interoperability.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2006; 23(5): 16–18. |
