What Obama's administration means to health IT

According to TEPR founder Peter Waegemann, only time will tell how much success the Obama administration will have in the field of health IT. A strong advocate of mobile health, Waegemann believes that ultimately, it will be companies like Google and Microsoft that lead the way toward such a movement--not a more-involved government.

While agencies such as the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology appear to be helping hospitals to become more IT oriented, Waegemann says that under the Bush administration, the CCHIT only focused on the most expensive EMR systems, which kept smaller physicians and practices at a competitive disadvantage. He believes that the Obama administration will be more effective with a hands-off approach, rather than forcing strategies like, say, EMR adoption, on the nation as a whole.

Ultimately, it seems that everyone agrees that there needs to be significant changes to the current healthcare model. Increased spending on IT seems to be a start.  TEPR participants will probably have a say in how this plays out on the corporate level, but for the near future Congress will have a large role in whether health IT adoption speeds up. (After all, with Congress doling out IT subsidies, expect the golden rule to be in play--they who have the gold make the rules.)

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