Recent reports that the Obama administration rolled out an ambitious five-year plan for moving doctors and hospitals to computerized medical records means a revolution toward excellence in the medical IT industry.
While this requirement certainly means significant costs for doctor offices and hospitals to come into compliance, the promise of greater safety for patients and lower long term costs is worth the growing pain.
To ease this transition, doctors and hospitals will be able to seek federal aid as early as 2011. The deadline for compliance is 2015, with the consequence of loss in medicare payments for those who are still not on board.
The system of medical records management is dangerously “unhealthy” in a variety of ways. The cure is a commitment to creating systems that allow online expedited access to records and a stronger safety net to avoid errors related to direct patient care. If the occurrence of doctors prescribing the wrong medicine or overlooking critical patient profile data in diagnosis can be minimized or avoided altogether then the multi-million dollar price tag to hospital level care centers will be worth it.
For those poised to advance in the IT field, this conversion will create thousands of new job opportunities across the nation. Leading IT providers stand to take in a healthy portion of the estimated $27 billion that federal incentive payments will provide over the next 10 years.
Kavaliro is one of the leading sources of cutting-edge IT staffing nationwide and still growing. Our ability to anticipate needs and create partnerships that allow rapid placement and long term stability is one of our greatest strengths that we share with our employees.
Doctors' offices can currently receive as much as $44,000 through Medicare and $63,750 through Medicaid for installing computer systems that meet federal standards. Hospitals can receive millions. The motivation is there for both medical providers and IT support to combine forces to bring US Healthcare to a new level of excellence. To be a part of this exciting industry revolution, contact Kavaliro today.