Impact of Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act on the implementation of health information exchange and the direct technology in Illinois

2^nd International Conference on Health Informatics and Technology

July 27-29, 2015 Valencia, Spain

Edward Mensah

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Health Med Informat

Abstract :

The United States healthcare industry is one of the most fragmented systems among the industrialized Western countries. This fragmentation has resulted in an annual expenditure of approximately three trillion dollars, low quality and expensive care, with approximately 45 million uninsured patients. In order to transform the healthcare industry into a more effective system with less duplication of diagnoses, reduced error rates, improved access and reduced cost the government provided a sum of 30 billion dollars to encourage the adoption of certified electronic health records by eligible providers and the implementation of health information exchanges. The aim of the health information exchange implementation is to facilitate the secure sharing of health data and information among providers in order to coordinate care and reduce error rates and inefficiencies. This, ultimately, will reduce costs and improve quality of care. In addition to the subsidies provided to encourage the adoption of certified electronic records the government has also provided 40 billion dollars to encourage providers to use the health information exchanges to satisfy meaningful use requirements. Research on the impacts of these policies is still ongoing. This study summarizes the experience of the state of Illinois in the adoption of certified electronic health records and the direct health information exchange technology in sharing health data. Policy measures for the improvement of adoption of these technologies are provided.