Opinion Piece Says Electronic Health ‘Marshall Plan’ Needed To Fix Health Care System
"The problem" with the U.S. health care system "is not with the doctors but with the system," namely the "fee-for-service" payment system that "encourages doctors to focus on patients' immediate problems" rather than on preventive care, >Baltimore Sun reporter David Kohn writes in a Sun opinion piece. He continues, "Amazingly, less than 5% of U.S. medical spending goes toward prevention; the rest goes to treatment," adding, to "remedy this imbalance, the U.S. must help doctors change how they practice" and a "good place to start is by encouraging the use of electronic health records." Kohn writes, "Over the next five years, the federal government must develop an EHR 'Marshall Plan' so that every doctor, clinic and hospital in the country adopts prevention-oriented technology."
Kohn says, "The election of Barack Obama" and his choice of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) as HHS secretary "bode well" for such a proposal because Obama "seems serious about changing health care" and Daschle is "a tech-savvy health wonk who has praised EHRs as a key reform strategy." Kohn concludes, "The price of such an initiative would not be trivial," but "by replacing expensive treatment with low-cost prevention, EHRs eventually would save billions," and "[e]ven more important, a nationwide EHR system can help trigger a health revolution, leading to better care, and better health, for millions of Americans" (Kohn, Baltimore Sun, 12/12).
