The Convergence Of Health Care & Information Technology

The Wall Street Journal's VentureWire dispatch posted an interesting article about The Convergence Of Health Care & Information Technology:

New efforts to overhaul the health care system is creating opportunity for a new generation of health care-IT hybrids. The federal stimulus law, which allocates $19 billion to health care-IT, combined with Congress’s efforts to provide health insurance to the uninsured, is enticing entrepreneurs and investors alike.

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The stimulus law provides financial incentives for physicians to exchange paper health records for electronic ones, which creates opportunity for providers of solutions to store and share sensitive patient data. Technologies for monitoring patients remotely, and keep them out of the hospital, will also be in demand because of their ability to hold down health care spending, some investors contend.

If you're a regular reader you know I'm a broken record on this, but digital pathology is a key technology enabling electronic health records.  Including pathology reports in EHR is fine, but without digitized slides the original primary information is not being recorded for later research, secondary consults, etc.

Overall the trend toward EHR helps patients, payers, and physicians alike, and is one of the most positive outcomes of the federal stimulus plan.