Electronic Health Information Management: Risk and Cost Controls

Health care entities have been moving in the direction of increased digitization of information for some time, with caregivers increasingly communicating with each other and with patients by email; laboratory results and radiology images primarily stored and disseminated electronically; and claims and reimbursements long ago having given up the pencil and pad. This transition picked up considerable speed with monetary grants to expedite the transition to electronic health records in the HITECH Act provisions of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (colloquially knows as “The Stimulus Package”).