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Digital health records not upholding promises on lower costs, better care

Electronic health records have not brought the expected reductions in costs or improvements in health care, according to a RAND Corp. analysis.

The report concludes that current systems were slow to be adopted and “neither interconnected nor easy to use.”

A 2005 analysis by RAND researchers predicted that a broad adoption of health care information technology could eventually save $81 billion annually in US health care costs.

The latest report cites the need for health care providers to “re-engineer” processes based on a “compelling vision” that could still meet the original promise of improved care at lower cost.

“The failure of health information technology to quickly deliver on its promise is not caused by its lack of potential, but rather because of the shortcomings in the design of the IT systems that are currently in place,” researcher Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH, said in a RAND Corp. press release.

In the 7 years since the original report, annual health care spending in the United States has grown by $800 billion annually, according to the release.

The report said the following improvements are needed:

• Health data stored in one IT system must be retrievable by others
• Patients should have ready access to their electronic health information
• Health IT systems must be re-engineered to aid the work of clinicians, not hinder it

“Systems should be intuitive, so they can be used by busy health care providers without extensive training,” the report stated.