There appears to be some excitement over an amendment to the Senate bill permitting healthcare providers practicing in hospital-owned outpatient clinics to get purchase subsidies for their electronic health records. According to the original guidelines of 2009 ARRA, some of these clinicians would not be eligible for the incentive payments.
This poses an enigma for me. If physicians are working for a hospital-owned facility, wouldn’t the facility be purchasing the electronic system? If indeed this is the case, why would the physicians need subsidies to buy and adopt the system?
The downside of buying the system is obviously the expense.
The benefits of adopting the system are plentiful, not just for public gain but for the providers buy ventolin inhaler united states themselves.
Time spent researching optimal treatments for particular ailments are virtually eliminated. When patients call after hours, the provider can access the record from anywhere to answer questions and treat the patients appropriately, documenting the actions as opposed to collecting “slips of papers” with the entries to be documented at a later time. Escripts take mere moments and alerts with allergies and cross-reactivity with other medications pop up to help the provider instantly.
Accessing visits the patients have had with specialists and diagnostics tests that were already done would be at the provider’s fingertips.
If you have the explanation to the enigma, I would appreciate hearing from you. Feel free to voice your opinion.
