Separating the Hype from Health IT

Tech Insider blogger Robert Charette wrote on one of his other blogs, The Risk Factor, about the recent Congressional Budget Office study on the benefits and cost savings of electronic health records. In general, the CBO study calls into question the cost savings that some past studies say an electronic health records system would provide. CBO also listed shortcomings in RAND study, which is one of the more cited studies on the subject. RAND concluded in its study that an electronic health record system would save the United States $81 billion annually. CBO’s basic conclusion is that electronic health records on their own would not reduce health costs but taken as part of an overall strategy would.

The CBO study underscores, again, that IT developed in isolation does little to create the efficiencies and improved performance that its developers had planned. Any system â€" especially one as large as an electronic health records system (some estimates have put the cost at more than a quarter of a trillion dollars) â€" needs to be approached in a larger context of planning for reducing health costs. As Charette concludes about the CBO study in his blog, “There is a tremendous amount of hype about what health IT can do, and very little discussion of the true costs or risks involved. I am all for health IT, but its application needs to be addressed in a realistic fashion.”