Obama: Economic recovery package should include funds for IT
President-elect Barack Obama Thursday outlined plans for an economic recovery package that includes funding to improve healthcare information technology.Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan would require up to $800 billion in new funding to rebuild Americans' trust in the economy, help provide new jobs and make all American medical records electronic in less than a half decade.
"To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that, within five years, all of America's medical records are computerized," Obama said. "This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests."
"But it just won't save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs; it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system," he added.
