To your health: stimulus money advances the medical IT industry.

• Author: Stewart, Heather
• Position: Focus

For at least three decades, technology companies and physicians have worked to transform the health care industry with information technology: electronic medical records, billing and scheduling software and systems to interface with other practices and facilities.

The effort has been tremendous--but only partially successful. About 4 percent of doctors who see outpatients use a fully functional electronic medical record (EMR) system, and about 13 percent use a very basic system, according to a 2008 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

But soon, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will pump about S19 billion into the medical information technology industry. The bulk of this money will be used as a carrot to entice doctors and hospitals into trying out EMRs, with reimbursements of $44,000 to $64,000 per physician.

The impact of this windfall will be immense, says Zubin Emsley, CEO of ChartLogic, a Salt Lake-based company that provides EMR and practice management software to physicians.

Emsley explains that about 85 percent of the nations doctors--those with no EMR system at all--now have a substantial financial incentive to invest in one. "It's going to change our market completely," he says. "We expect the demand for our product to increase by a factor of five."

The unprecedented infusion of customers and cash will likely boost research and development efforts, leading to better EMR products. And the stimulus money comes with some strings attached that will also lead to better EMR systems. In order to receive the reimbursement, doctors must purchase EMR systems that can support "meaningful use."

The definition of meaningful use, says Emsley, is rather vague. But at the very least, EMR systems should allow electronic prescribing, and be able to connect with other practices and hospitals so that information can be shared.

And of course, for medical facilities to have the ability to share information such as an emergency room in Florida quickly accessing your entire medical history in Utah, is one of the ultimate goals of the EMR industry.

"ChartLogic has already been moving in that direction," says Emsley. "The stimulus money is going to push other companies to move in that direction as well."

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But money is not the only reason physicians have turned their backs on EMR systems. Common complaints are that the systems can be hard to learn, time consuming and disruptive in the examination room.

If these...