Well I think a few words might sum up this entire report, “Show me the money” might be some word echoed by hospitals. I visited a hospital this week and they are keeping the lights and basics going only, why, because we have no budget for the State of California and nursing homes and other businesses are closing as a result. No budget means no money for Medicaid compensation and it has been a long draught and folks are running out of money, no possibilities for extended lines of credit and it is possible the governor is going to veto the bill?
I think this is one huge reason why hospitals are not subsidizing physicians, same old story. About 50% of the hospitals border on insolvency now and you can catch up and read my series on “Desperate Hospitals” for more facts and information. There’s also the new Medicare rules coming in to play on October 1st about the “never-never” rules they are concerned with, so I think all in all they might have some other pressing issues at hand before considering the medical records issue.
If you look here, even the folks at Harvard are looking to Venture Capitalists for funds, and thank goodness those folks are around so advances can take place, so again there’s this big issue called money and this group is very pro active in working on this solution for the physicians in their area, so again we can analyze all we want, but “Show me the money” is the big issue. It folks can do wonders if the funds are there for them to work with. BD
While hospitals are evaluating strategies to help physicians purchase electronic medical records (EMRs) following recent federal regulatory changes, they are proceeding cautiously, according to findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change’s (HSC) 2007 site visits to 12 nationally representative metropolitan communities. Hospital strategies to aid physician EMR adoption include offering direct financial subsidies, extending the hospital’s ambulatory EMR vendor discounts and providing technical support. Two key factors driving hospital interest in supporting physician EMR adoption are improving the quality and efficiency of care and aligning physicians more closely with the hospital. A few hospitals have begun small-scale, phased rollouts of subsidized EMRs, but the burden of other hospital information technology projects, budget limitations and lack of physician interest are among the factors impeding hospital action. While it is too early to assess whether the regulatory changes will spur greater physician EMR adoption, the outcome will depend both on hospitals’ willingness to provide support and physicians’ acceptance of hospital assistance.
http://www.hschange.org/CONTENT/1015/?PRINT=1
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