Advocates: U.S. Needs to Push Harder for E-Health
Health care advocates want legislation to encourage doctors to implement electronic health records
Currently, only about 25 percent of U.S. doctors use e-health records, and only about 10 percent of them have e-health records fully integrated into their practices, ITIF said. But in Sweden, 90 percent of doctors use e-health records, and in Denmark, 88 percent do, according to the ITIF.
That shows that adoption in the U.S. is a matter of the right policies and incentives, said Robert Atkinson, ITIF's president. "This is not rocket science," he said.
More people need to push Congress to create incentives for e-health records, added Nancy Johnson, a former U.S. representative and co-chairwoman of the Health IT Now Coalition.
"Why, when we know this would help so much, are we not doing it?" Johnson said. "We know how to deliver a higher quality of care, and we're not doing it."
