Parties and candidates will inevitably stoke the health reform debate fires between now and November but the one aspect they all seem to agree on, at least publicly, is the raft of benefits health IT brings. But the survival of HIT's bipartisan nature will ultimately be a matter of federal funding -- and not all health-centric technologies are equal.
The GOP candidate has taken a long and weaving road to arrive at his current stance concerning health IT's power to transform care delivery, and gained considerable attention, as well as financial profit, along the way.
This November saw healthcare executives pay big campaign money to both political parties. Health IT vendors, however, upped the ante this election year, paying out some hefty donations of their own. Judith Faulkner, CEO of Epic, and Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman are among this year's top spenders.
Health IT firms say they are ready with systems equipped for 'meaningful use', but for providers hoping to qualify for federal incentives, time is of the essence.
The deal among a county medical society, the state's largest health plan and a medical records software company aims to provide the software to all the doctors in the state.