With the new administration taking office in the US, hopes of a heath care revival is on the horizon with electronic medical records facilitating the efficient functioning of the system. President Obama has vowed to ensure more inter-connectivity not only among schools, colleges and libraries, but between health care providers too.

We all loved the concept of the paperless office we had been hearing so much about, but in the health care system in the US, there are lots to be done. Records of patients continue to be kept in dead-tree format that makes copying and transferring them from one office to another a tedious job laden with high costs. It is for this very reason that only a couple of years ago just 14-17% of doctors kept electronic medical records using software.

Costs as reported then were high at $20,000 for licenses, training and data entry although the certification problem was overcome. The new administration want s to revamp electronic medical care with government help as ordinary Americans lacked the services necessary and many refused to take out a policy because of the high costs involved. With the government electronic medical records in place, costs would certainly come down.

Health care in the US costs a lot of money and electronic medical records are sure to bring it down. Certification for Health Care Information Technology, funded by the government, reviews the various software packages for electronic medical records and ensures its compliance to the set parameters. Functionality, Interoperability and security as outlined in the massive PDF format are the chief criteria for the products to get through the certification process. It has to comply with the rules set out by the government for electronic medical records to be handled. But nothing is more valuable than savings on efficiency alone.

Rand Corporation, a research think tank had estimated a few years ago that the government electronic medical record system, when put in place, could save up to US$77billion in efficiency standards. Even though it amounted to less than 5% of the total health care spending, it was valuable by any standards.
Hopes are there that electronic medical records policy as taken up by the government will ensure coverage to all Americans by the year 2014.

 It is expected Americans coast to coast will have their medical records in electronic form by then. After certified products, inter-connectivity of hospitals and doctors is the next step and those not compatible so far would have to move toward electronic medical record according to the government. It would amount to large scale savings in the health care system. 

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