A $1 Trillion Mistake?
Since 2009, almost a third of health providers, a group that ranges from small private practices to huge hospitals — have installed at least some “health IT” technology. It wasn’t cheap. For a major hospital, a full suite of technology products can cost $150 million to $200 million. Implementation — linking and integrating systems, training, data entry and the like — can raise the total bill to $1 billion.
Now, a comprehensive evaluation of the scientific literature has confirmed what many researchers suspected: The savings claimed by government agencies and vendors of health IT are little more than hype…With a few isolated exceptions, the preponderance of evidence shows that the systems had not improved health or saved money.
Soumerai and Koppel in the WSJ.
The same was true of the VA. I would be interested to hear of any governmental agency that has effectively streamlined through integrating IT innovations.
With the technological advancements that are available, of course they are going to be expensive. Lets be real, clients are going to pay for it.
This is actually unbelievable.
Who knew that all the “other” things could cost MORE than the actual IT equipment!
So, through our taxes becoming subsidies given out by the government, we bought $1 trillion worth of junk to fix a system that was already working? I’ve never had my records lost or any problems at a hospital/doctor, has anyone else?
I studied Health Information Technology (HIT) and the literature clearly showed there is a benefit; but only to the extent HIT was acquired to solve a specific business purpose. Millions of offices across the country have acquired the Microsoft Office suite of business software products. These were purchased to solve specific problems. If (20 years ago) the government decided office information technology was important for both quality and efficiency in offices, created software standards and mandated it’s use, what would the result have been? Would it look anything like Microsoft Office? Would it be very cheap? We cannot say with any certainty what the answers to these questions are. But I believe most people have a good idea that office software would not cost a mere $100 or so per user and look just like Microsoft Office if the government had tried to mandate the use.
I think it was Linda Gorman, who pointed out in an earlier NCPA publication, that every doctor’s office, and every hospital business office, is wired and bristling with information technology. All hospitals inventory — medical supplies and drugs — are tracked using software. Every business office has accounting software. Every claim is processed and submitted by computer (usually electronically). Every doctor has a phone – including a cellphone. It’s not that hospitals and doctors don’t use information technology. It’s that they acquire it primarily for those tasks that information technology proves useful.
And then people wonder why health care in the US is so expensive? Take a look at these numbers just for the technology used. How about every other expense that hospitals incur? They need to make profit one way or another…and these are very expensive mistakes.
it’s a never ending cycle to have the latest in tech despite the marginal differences in performance. it is sad that so much money is being wasted for nothing
The government wanted HIT implemented, and they probably knew it wouldn’t save any money, they just wanted a selling point.
The optimist in me wants to think that now we have the infrastructure and can build developments onto it.