"By computerizing health records, we can avoid dangerous medical mistakes, reduce costs, and improve care."
President George W. Bush
State of the Union Address, Jan. 20, 2004
This article, from
Whitehouse.gov, outlines the President's view of challenges to the U.S. health care system, and offers a summary of the solutions that his Health Information Technology Plan proposes over the next 10 years.
Transforming Health Care: The President's Health Information Technology Plan points to high cost, preventable errors, uneven health care quality, and poor communication among doctors, hospitals, and other providers as the major challenges to the system.
Electronic health records will be designed to share information privately and securely between health care providers when authorized by the patient. President Bush believes that innovations in secure exchange of medical information will help transform health care. Practices that are already storing patient records electronically with a system such as the NextGen EMR and other information systems are already taking steps towards that goal. The Department of Health and Human Services is working with the private sector and other Federal agencies to identify and endorse voluntary standards.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/technology/economic_policy200404/chap3.html