WHAT APPALLING NONSENSE: A NEW LAYER OF BUREAUCRACY

And fitting it through the privacy regulations will impose a huge bureaucratic load

President Bush returned to the state that helped seal his re-election victory to pitch his second-term health agenda, urging greater use of computerized medical records and electronic prescriptions. "It can save money and save lives," Bush said Thursday at a forum at the Cleveland Clinic. He said medical record-keeping, where most prescriptions and many medical documents are still handwritten, lags that of other industries.

In Washington, the Department of Health and Human Services announced steps to incorporate electronic prescribing into the new Medicare prescription drug program that begins in January 2006. The regulations will require that e-prescribing is made available to participating seniors, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said....

"Most industries in America have used information technology to make their businesses more cost effective, more efficient and more productive - and the truth of the matter is health care hasn't," Bush said.

In the budget he will send Congress next month, Bush will propose spending $125 million to test computerization of health records, more than twice what is being spent in the budget year that ends Sept. 30. Bush also said ways must be found to safeguard medical records to protect against "people prying into them."

Bush's pledge to do more to encourage wider use of electronic medical record-keeping - and allow pharmacies, hospitals, doctors' officers and insurers to share information - was praised as a good starting point by the health care industry. "There has been a huge amount of pressure from across the health care field to have the federal government take an active role in the development of electronic health care records," said Scott Wallace, head of the National Alliance for Health Information Technology.

The Cleveland Clinic has been helping the government develop standards for medical computerization and Bush heard from doctors who showed him some of the technology and then joined him on the stage. "Very impressive," Bush said.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation.

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