Via another FierceHealthIT article, I found this story on HealthDecisions.Org: Gordon Begins Effort to Integrate U.S. Healthcare/Patient Information Technologies. Another acknowledgement of our crying need - will it go anywhere?
U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) has introduced legislation authorizing the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish guidelines and mechanisms to promote the integration of the healthcare information enterprise in the United States.
"The U.S. boasts the finest healthcare system in the world, yet doctors and patients still don't have access to comprehensive health information. Healthcare is the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy, but it's also the only major sector that hasn't fully integrated information technology," said Gordon...
The adoption of electronic healthcare records and other health-related IT has been slow. In general the health care industry invests only about 2 percent of its revenues in IT. Other information intensive industries, such as financial services, invest approximately 10 percent of revenues.
"Current federal efforts have made slow progress in this arena and in this age of rapid technological advancement, that's unacceptable. This bill, and the development of interoperability specifications, is the logical first step in deploying and utilizing IT in our health system," said Gordon.