Hospitals to report electronic health problems

Electronic health records

The ranking member of the US Senate Finance Committee - Senator Charles E. Grassley, has asked 31 hospitals and healthcare systems to provide feedback on problems with computer systems associated with the government's efforts to encourage the roll-out of electronic health records (EHR).

Health IT is a big deal at the moment, of course, because of the tens of billions of dollars included in last year's stimulus bill to encourage doctors and hospitals to buy and use electronic systems, The Wall Street Journal stated.

Grassley sent a letter to the health facilities, which included some of the nation's largest, asking them to inform him of any "issues or concerns that have been raised by your healthcare providers" over the past two years.

"Given the taxpayer investment and the investment of the healthcare system overall in the information technology industry, the more Congress and others overseeing implementation of this program dig into the problems and work to get them sorted out now, the better," Grassley said in a statement.

Grassley said he wanted more information about current shortcomings in the health IT sector as the federal government works to implement the health IT provisions included in the 2009 federal economic stimulus package.

Concerns over EHR

Full EHR systems include patient care order-entry systems and networks to share patient data between hospitals, primary care physicians and insurance companies, and to fill pharmacy prescriptions.

Grassley said that his letter and 11-question survey was prompted by concerns that had been brought to his attention in recent months with regard to EHR systems that included "administrative complications, formatting and usability issues, errors and interoperability."

In some of the most serious cases, incorrect medication dosages are being miscalculated by software that is interchanging patient body weights with kilograms and pounds.

"Some of those providers have expressed frustration about the response, or lack of, they get when they take those kinds of problems to the vendors or the hospital administration," Grassley said.

Hospitals and doctors must begin rolling out EHR systems by 2013 or they're at risk of losing full federal reimbursement money. By 2015, medical facilities risk penalties in the form of lost Medicare reimbursements.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 earmarked around $19 billion in incentives for EHR systems. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act allows for payments of up to $64,000 to each healthcare operation that deploys an EHR system and proves it's being used effectively by January 2011.

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