RHITEC Plans – Information Technology for the Future
In recent years, public dissatisfaction with available health insurance options and the efficiency of the medical industry has become apparent. Not only are hard working people finding themselves left out in the cold by insurance companies that care more about collecting premiums than providing genuine care in times of emergency, it’s becoming more and more obvious that current systems for recording and sharing health information and medical histories between doctors and specialists are outdated and inefficient. That’s why so many health care professionals are excited about the possible solutions contained in the proposed RHITEC Plans.
In case you’ve never heard of RHITEC Plans before, you should know that they are one of several health care related provisions that were included in the historic American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. One of the most obvious problems with the current health care system is that many doctors and hospitals are still relying on patient disclosure and paper records to inform themselves of current treatments and past conditions as they are searching for diagnoses and medication solutions. This system is fraught with problems, including the opportunity for human error as well as the time delay in transferring records from one health care professional to another.
For those that are new to this concept, RHITEC Plans stand for Regional Healthcare Information Technology Extension Centers, and according to the federal stimulus, qualified projects in this area could bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding for organizations and facilities that are able to implements them. These centers would represent a shift from limited paper record keeping systems to more sophisticated digital systems that could easily be shared with doctors and specialists as a patient sees fit. Obviously the ideal situation would be a national database that includes information on almost every member of the population, but this will first require regions of the country to develop their own systems, which can then be linked.
One of the only problems with RHITEC Plans is that they are currently lacking the funding that they need to take information sharing and storage systems to the next level. Hospitals and other institutions that would seek to implement such extension centers are also lacking a consistent system for determining which software programs and technological tools are qualified to be used under the vague meaningful use stipulation included in the ARRA. Those that are interested in implementing these systems are seeking more direction and funding to proceed.
