IT: Govt help one way to get docs to use EMRs

Girish Kumar of eClinicalWorks runs a successful business that is emerging as one of the leaders in getting full EMRs into the hands of physicians in small practices. While larger group practices of 25 or even 50 or more doctors are adopting EMRs at a rapid rate, the pace is still relatively slow among the smaller practices, which represent the vast majority of American physicians.

The federal government has been talking about interoperability, but Kumar says it hasn't been paying enough attention to getting the "nodes" of the smaller practices onto the "network." He calls for either an outright subsidy or changes in the way Medicare pays physicians (i.e., more money for those who invest in IT) to get the smaller practices over the hump. In exchange, the government should force vendors to become truly interoperable.

- see this interview at The Health Care Blog

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