e-Health and Politics

When president Obama took position as the 44^th president of the USA, his agenda also included moving the country toward the usage of electronic health records (EHR). He stated that this will help physicians to manage better patient’s profiles, improve quality of services and reduce possible medical errors. Some strategies to achieve this goal include:

·         Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP): is an effort of public and private entities to develop some standards among the different existing softwares. This will homogenize the used technology across the nation, allowing better health care outcomes.

·         Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN): this network purpose is to create a unified patient’s profile platform that patients and health care providers have access to. It would be accessible whenever it is needed for clinical decisions.

·         National e-Health Collaborative (NeHC): this is a project that enables the submission of possible prioritized initiatives related to e-health implementation.

Some of these initiatives are complete and others are in progress, which demonstrates the importance of this matter. It is very satisfactory that the president and his advisors foresee the impact that e-health “culture” may have in the individual and national level. It, certainly, will decrease the cost of health related errors, which will allow to direct those funds to providing health care to the more necessitated ones, as well as setting an example to other countries.

Source:

 NPCR-AERRO e-Health Initiatives, Retrieved form http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/npcr/informatics/aerro/activities/ehealth.htm