Current EHR (electronic health record) and HIT (health information technology) technology is designed simply to enhance payment. We need to redirect the national strategic plan on EHR technology, and orient it to improve clinical healthcare outcomes as well as to control long-term healthcare costs.
It is time to truly take a national approach that puts healthcare for patients, improved healthcare outcomes first...and in doing so we will have a significantly improved mechanism of relating cost to care, and to better define achieving the best care...as well as the best, or most effective, cost management.
Elements needed are episodes of care, continuous quality improvement, statements of relative outcome, and full integration with practice management tools.