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Electronic health-care records could help save lives(The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Feb. 22--On-again, off-again initiatives to pull the nation's 815,000 physicians into the computer age are on again, and a group of Pittsburgh-area physicians could be on the cutting edge of the latest effort. For years, health-care economists have maintained that clear, interactive, computerized patient health records would enhance patient safety and cut health-care costs. But only a handful of physicians use such systems. Now, the Obama administration -- spurred by the president's campaign pledge to computerize the nation's health-care records by 2014 -- is pushing Congress for subsidies that could move physicians from paper records and make digital health-care records a reality. Last fall, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, called CMS, enlisted 200 Pittsburgh-area physicians in small practices to participate in its latest pilot project. The project is scheduled to get under way this summer and could serve as a model for Obama's larger proposal. Dr. Louis DiToppa, 51, a family practitioner who maintains a solo practice in White Oak, said it can't come too soon. It didn't take much to persuade DiToppa, who studied engineering as an undergraduate and embraced technology, that electronic patient records make sense. His office has maintained electronic patient records for years and was transmitting prescriptions to pharmacies electronically even before Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield set aside $29 million last year to help Western Pennsylvania physicians begin prescribing online. He's signed up for incentives that may be available through the CMS pilot project and has encouraged colleagues to make the leap. "God forbid if you keel over in front of Allegheny General Hospital and you're a (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) patient because they can't get into each other's systems. If you shared the information, you'd be able to reduce the cost immensely," DiToppa said. At the national level, policy experts representing a diverse range of views from the Rand Corp. to Newt Gingrich's Center for Health Transformation, agree interactive electronic health-care records could save dollars and lives. But physicians, unlike their counterparts in business and industry, have been slow to adopt such technology. The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported that only 4 percent of about 2,800 doctors who responded to a national survey had fully functional, computerized patient record systems, while 13 percent had less comprehensive systems. Those familiar with the task say it will not be simple or inexpensive to change those numbers. First Washington will have to address patient privacy concerns. Then it will have to winnow systems that can communicate among 815,000 physicians as well as 5,000 hospitals from the dozens of programs now available. And finally, there is the cost. "Our health-care system is a very fragmented, very costly system. It's a phenomenal burden to ask doctors to put all those files into digital records," said health-care attorney and former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Cynthia Maleski. The CMS pilot programs, scheduled to be implemented this year in Pittsburgh, the Maryland-Washington, D.C., area and several other markets are strictly voluntary and provide no up-front money. Instead, physicians earn incentives they can collect once their systems are operational. Back in White Oak, DiToppa hopes it will smooth the way for his colleagues to make the leap. "It's the right thing to do in terms of patient safety and compliance. I wish it would happen more quickly. I would love to see some higher power like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs step into the mess that health care is in America now," he said. To see more of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/. Copyright (c) 2009, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |