A bad diagnosis for e-medical records

The great promise of electronic medical records, a quick way for doctors to improve diagnoses, reduce errors and improve the quality of patient care, remains a dream rather than a reaiity. Technology, it turns out, is not the major problem. There is no doubt that the health care industry has been held back by loose and overlapping technical standards and poor interoperability among the different types of health information systems. But Computerworld reports that the biggest obstacle stems from the lack of financial incentives for most health care providers to invest in using electronic records internally, or to share the data with other providers. The federal government has a pilot program, and some institutions have taken the lead, but who will pay for the needed IT transition remains unresolved and the biggest impediment to substantial progress.

For more on health records:
- see this Computerworld article