Americans get the right treatment only 55% of the time,

U.S. Presidential Candidates' Health Plans: Incorporating Information Technology to Provide 21st Century Care Posted July 25, 2007 04:56 PM (EST) By Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D., Jessica B. Rubin, Michelle E. Treseler*
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but the incorporation of information technology (IT) in the practice of medicine is woefully lacking. Over 1.5 million Americans are injured and more than 100,000 die annually due to medical errors, and a recent study found that 80% of these mistakes began with miscommunication, missing or incorrect information about patients, or lack of access to patient records. The fact is that most health providers lack the information systems necessary to coordinate a patient's care with other providers, share needed information, monitor patient compliance, and measure and improve performance. In fact, in nearly one in seven visits, clinicians report that medical information integral to their patients' care is missing - a problem that was significantly less likely to be reported by physicians with access to patients' full electronic medical records. Additionally, a RAND study has revealed that despite spending twice as much on health care as any other nation -- 18% of our GDP -- Americans get the right treatment only 55% of the time, a problem that might be partially solved by health IT. It is also estimated that there is a 15 year science to service gap between the time of a new medical discovery and its wide dissemination in the community. In the Information Age, why shouldn't it be 15 seconds?

Currently, it is estimated that only 10-20% of health professionals and less than 25% of hospitals in the country use health information technology to reduce mistakes, increase efficiency, and decrease health care costs. It is estimated that if most health care providers adopted health IT the potential efficiency savings could average over $77 billion per year -- largely as a result of reduced hospital stays, reduced nurses' administrative time and more efficient drug utilization. ...