Promoting Electronic Health Record Adoption. Is It the Correct Focus?

Abstract

In 2004, President Bush set as a goal that every American would have an electronic health record by 2014. In the three years since that pronouncement, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has established the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), and the American Health Information Community (AHIC) to oversee policy. It has set priorities and has anointed two existing organizations, the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) and the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), to play significant roles in establishing and promoting the standards necessary to achieve this goal.