Federal Deadline Hobbling eHealth IT Rollout

Lucas123 writes "A federal deadline that begins next year and requires hospitals to prove they're meaningfully using electronic health records will lead to technical problems and data errors affecting patient care, say politicians and top IT professionals responsible for the deployments. Physicians and hospitals have until the end of 2011 to receive the maximum federal incentive monies to deploy the technology. If not deployed by 2015, they face penalties through cuts in Medicare reimbursements. 'I think we have nontechnology people making decisions about technology,' said Gregg Veltri, CIO at Denver Health. 'I wonder if anybody understands the reality of IT systems and how complex they are, especially when they're integrated together. You're going to sacrifice quality if you increase the speed [of the rollout].'"

Bah...

[Wrexs0ul]

It's not like anything bad's ever happened when critical systems are rolled-out untested [zdnet.com], unprepared [itdisasters.com], or irresposibly [baselinemag.com].

I mean it's not like someone's life [novinite.com] is ever put in jeaopardy by minor software glitches, especially in hospitals [drexel.edu]. ...on a side note, Googling "IT disasters" leads to some very interesting results.

-Matt

Re:Politicians playing the King!

[cartzworth]

I've never understood why people use the "teabagging/teabagger" phrase in a negative context politically. You're insisting I keep teabagging. I will indeed continue to be the one putting my balls on your face. Now go back to the DailyKos.