New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called for restructuring the way health care is paid for in the United States and using health IT as the foundation of a better health care system.
“Five years from today, every doctor's office, clinic and hospital in America that accepts Medicaid and Medicare must be using prevention-oriented electronic health records,” Bloomberg said in a major address this week in Washington, D.C.
EHRs are the key to having a health care system that works better and holds costs down, the mayor said. He said the current system places too much emphasis on curing the sick and gives too little emphasis to preventive care.
"We've got a health care system that's not only breaking the bank, and not only leaving one out of six Americans uninsured, but which also provides decidedly ineffective care," Bloomberg said.
Using EHRs, he said, doctors can keep track of their patients’ health trends and treatments and can better manage preventive care. In addition, EHR systems will allow those who pay for health care to track doctors’ performance and reward preventive treatment.
"Combine the power of information technology with this ability to accurately evaluate and reward performance,” Bloomberg said. “It gives you the right prescription for our ailing health care system.”
He acknowledged that the cost of equipping all U.S. primary care doctors with EHRs could be as high as $20 billion but called it a worthwhile investment.
New York City is investing $30 million in city funds and using another $13 million from health care providers to acquire EHR systems for doctors who treat New Yorkers at public expense. The result will be the country’s largest electronic network of community physicians, he said.
He called on the federal government to restructure Medicare and Medicaid and underwrite the costs of EHRs for primary care doctors and clinics.
"Today, most businesses -- down to the smallest corner grocery store -- have better information about their sales and inventories than even affluent medical practices have about their patients," the mayor said.
From the battlefield to the home front: Managing medical data
Government Health IT presents Col. Claude Hines Jr., program manager for the Defense Health Information Management System, in this recent InSight eSeminar. Col. Hines discusses the health information technology and tactical challenges faced by the military medical community in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict. In doing so, he describes the current information technology solutions for transferring clinical data between battlefield care givers to health care personnel at military treatment facilities worldwide.
