E-health records not enough, experts say

If the $19 billion for health IT in a recently passed US economic stimulus package goes only to driving up adoption of electronic health records, the US health care system will not improve, some medical experts say. Not only do doctors and hospitals need to adopt electronic health records (EHRs), but those digital records need to be easy to share with patients and health care providers, said Dr. Doug Henley, executive vice president with the American Academy of Family Physicians. And the current crop of EHRs still needs work, as doctors have to wade through multiple pages of data and enter the same information on multiple pages.