New York partner Peter Brown, national leader of Baker Hostetler's Technology Law Practice, co-authored a column, "Electronic Health Records: Facing the Issues," which was published in the August 12, 2009, edition of the New York Law Journal. The column, co-authored with Richard Raysman, a partner at Holland & Knight, also appeared on Law.com's "Legal Technology" website.
According to the authors: "Over the past decade, electronic transactions have slowly supplanted paper-based systems in many industries. For example, individuals and Wall Street brokerage firms employ electronic trading; federal and state taxpayers increasingly e-file their returns; and attorneys e-file pleadings and federal court documents. However, a physician jotting notes on a paper chart, which will then be stored in a large filing cabinet, remains the norm. In February, President Barack Obama signed a $787 billion economic stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-005, 123 Stat. 115 (2009), which contains the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act encouraging health care providers to adopt electronic medical records. With billions of dollars allocated toward the digitalization of health care, the era of electronic medical records has begun in earnest."
Brown and Raysman provide detail on both the "legislative and administrative initiatives contained within the stimulus package to promote the use of health information technology and electronic health records in Medicare and Medicaid." According to the authors, "state governments are also encouraging, and in some cases, mandating the adoption of interoperable electronic health records," as well.
However, according to Brown and Raysman, "there are numerous barriers to expanding the use of electronic medical records." The article details some of the barriers, including cost to providers, personnel training and privacy issues. The authors conclude the article discussing the options providers have to consider when implementing a new electronic records system, including cloud computing, which is ultimately about "furnishing computing resources on a subscription basis from a provider that handles infrastructure and system management such that customers can access their applications and data freely."