The movement to build a medical Internet linking millions of Americans' electronic health records advanced on Nov. 11. Officials of the U.S. Health & Human Services Dept. awarded four contracts to build regional networks that will let doctors and hospitals share medical data. The network is aimed at improving medical quality and slashing health-care costs.Technorati Tags: Medical Informatics
Contracts went to groups led by IBM (IBM), Accenture (ACN), Northrop Grumman (NOC), and Computer Sciences (CSC). Although the contracts total only $20 million, bidding by some of technology's titans reflects the industry's recognition that the $1.7 trillion U.S. health-care business could generate the next big wave of tech investment and productivity growth.
I'm Dr. Joshua Schwimmer, a nephrologist and internal medicine physician in New York City. • Kidney Notes was the first active nephrology blog. (Trivia: Kidney Notes is so old that the National Library of Medicine still uses it as an example of how to formally cite blogs.) • Professionally, you can find me at Kidney.nyc. • Kidney Notes is for educational purposes only, not medical advice. Consult qualified health care professionals. See disclaimer.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
A Booster Shot for Medical Data-Sharing
Via Businessweek: