As more doctors and hospitals adopt electronic health records (EHR), federal incentive payments facilitate the switch to smarter health IT. The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated $27 billion dollars in EHR incentives.
According to a recent article on Nextgov.com:
"Electronic health records promise to reduce mistakes, increase efficiency, cut costs and improve the quality of care for individual patients and patient populations."
In a recent survey 41 percent of doctors and 95 percent of hospitals view EHR favorably and are ready to give these new tools a try.
Though the cost of establishing electronic records can be high in the first year, the cost goes down substantially in subsequent years, and therefore incentive payments can defray the start-up cost for private practices. Internet-based e-medical records services also offer a much cheaper alternative, with monthly subscription plans that can help keep doctors and patients connected.