Hillary Back to Healthcare

In a speech yesterday in New York, Hillary Clinton unveiled her plan for "The Health Information for Quality Improvement Act," a new bill she is planning to introduce to promote quality and efficiency improvements in healthcare through implementation of EMRs. Here's a link to the CNN coverage.

I believe this is a great step forward and I'm happy she's stepping up with something like this. Unfortunately, the combination of Hillary and Healthcare brings out the worst memories and attitudes that people carry around about Clinton. Before you go off on a rant about how she almost ruined the healthcare system once before, at least read her unedited comments from yesterday at Cornell Medical Center here in Manhattan. Here's a sample:

But instead of helping clinicians manage their information needs, the fragmentation of our health care system poses barriers to communication between hospitals and practices, and between practices and research facilities. With the push of a button, a doctor should be able to receive the latest scientific articles along with his patient's chart, or prescribe a medicine and send it to the pharmacy. But often, the systems are not in place for them to do so. These barriers to communication don't serve physicians, and they don't serve patients either.

I think, overall, this proposal (of course, the proof is in the actual language of the bill, which I have not yet found) is a well-reseasoned and balanced one. If the current administration, without hesitation, can earmark Billions in aid to rebuild Iraq, I think it should also step up and put some dollars into making this happen. Will we get there without government help? Yes, I think so, or I wouldn't be devoting my professional life to being in the middle of it, but we'll get there FASTER if something like this bill carries a significant mandate.

Comments

[frank borger]

It's the bureaucracy stupid.

I worked in health care in Physics and Electronics maintenance, and the level of paperwork just balooned.

And now, we've got this government setup where even the abrasions and contusions resultant from being sucked into the intake of a jet engine have their separate 5-digit code. (And woe betide the medical supplier who doesn't enter the proper code.)

The prayer "Lord preserve us from the wrath of the Vikings" has been replaced by "preserve us from the paperwork of the bureaucrat."