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Friday, May 1, 2015

Obama Administration Report Slams Digital Health Records

By Melinda Beck
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published on April 10, 2015

The Obama administration took vendors of electronic health records to task for making it costly and cumbersome to share patient information and frustrating a $30 billion push to use digital records to improve quality and cut costs.

The report, by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, listed a litany of complaints it has received about vendors allegedly charging hefty fees to set up connections and share patient records; requiring customers to use proprietary platforms; and making it prohibitively expensive to switch systems.

The report also cited complaints that some hospital systems make it difficult to transfer patient records to rival systems or physicians as a way to control referrals and enhance their market dominance.

The entire article is here.