Adoption Of Health IT Still An Uphill Climb

Meanwhile, the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Labor Department have signed an agreement to advance this cause.  

MarketWatch: Automating Health Care Still A Daunting Task
The effort to drag the health-care industry into the technology age trudges onward, and it's still not clear whether the nation's 500,000 to 600,000 physicians will successfully make the journey. That's the finding from a number of health-care industry officials charged with pulling the medical profession into the 21st Century when it comes to managing patient records as well as automating the back-office operations of hospitals and clinics (Britt, 2/21).

Modern Healthcare: HRSA, Labor Department Sign Health IT Training Agreement
Health Resources and Services Administration Administrator Make Wakefield on Monday announced that her agency and the U.S. Labor Department have signed an agreement to use existing resources at community colleges and technical colleges to support the training of health information technology professionals at rural hospitals and clinics (Zigmond, 2/21).

This is part of Kaiser Health News' Daily Report - a summary of health policy coverage from more than 300 news organizations. The full summary of the day's news can be found here and you can sign up for e-mail subscriptions to the Daily Report here. In addition, our staff of reporters and correspondents file original stories each day, which you can find on our home page.