By Bill Toland

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Feb. 1, 2012

There are numerous "gaps and barriers" to implementing the health information technology reforms envisioned by the federal health IT act of 2009, according to a new report issued by the Bipartisan Policy Center, based in Washington, D.C.

The act, officially known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (or HITECH), earmarked about $30 billion to be spent on improving health care outcomes by spurring health providers to use information technology in meaningful ways.

Those "meaningful ways" include using electronic records instead of paper, creating better avenues of patient-provider communication and using electronic bookkeeping to coordinate care and improve access. Most of the money is geared toward providers that accept Medicare and Medicaid patients and reimbursements.

But in the nearly three years since the HITECH Act was signed into law as part of the larger stimulus bill, and "despite the introduction of IT to nearly every other aspect of modern life, the U.S. health care system remains largely paper-based," according to the study, called "Transforming Health Care: The Role of Health IT."

Read the full article here

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Health IT Initiative, Health Project, Task Force on Delivery System Reform and Health IT