[mdlug] Obahma plan to digitize health care

[Jeff Hanson]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Garry Stahl <tesral at comcast.net> wrote:
> Shove a decent software out and it can start tomorrow.  The problem with
> the plan is legacy records.  Legacy patients like myself with 50 years
> and more of medical records.  All that has to be digitized too.  The
> problem is it is not productive.

The novel and movie "Logan's Run" theorized a policy that would limit
backlogs by applying a strict cut-off date.

> Hospitals would be faced with either
> hiring three nurses or five data entry types.  The latter do not do
> patient care.

They won't.  It will be outsourced like many data processing tasks
(like transcription) are now.

> I agree there will be money to be made in such a move.  The question is
> who ends up footing the bill?

We do, just like we are paying for the existing system.  It's a large
up-front cost with long-term payoff.  The longer it goes on, the more
data that will accumulate on legacy systems that will need to be
converted.

Some general info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_record