Trend: Government health IT push comes at bad time for some

In all fairness, there's probably never a great time to ask hospitals to spend giant sums on new IT investments. But this is probably an especially bad time, even if you come promising subsidies, given the uncertain financial and political climate driven by reform, some observers say.

That, at least, is the take offered by health players in Kansas, where observers are cautiously hopeful that the economy will turn around by the time big investments will be more or less mandatory, i.e. by 2011 or 2012.  Right now, hospitals there are starting, like it or not, to line up partners who can help them move forward by that point. (Where they'll get the money, heaven only knows; if the bond markets haven't turned around and they don't have good real estate to sell, things could get iffy, indeed.)

However, at least one group of the state's hospitals has already moved ahead, beating the rush by a considerable margin. The Great Plains Health Alliance, a 25-hospital network, has received funding for a health information network. Another player, Via Christi Health System in Wichita, has been building out similar efforts for several years.

To learn more about this trend:
- read this iHealthBeat article

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