ABJS Carl T. Brighton Workshop on Health Informatics in Orthopaedic Surgery: Editorial Comment

Excerpt

The economic woes of the United States (U.S.) healthcare system have given rise to an unprecedented federal effort to modernize the information systems and promote the adoption of health information technology (HIT). The recent economic stimulus package—the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)—has a HIT component (HITECH Act) that will allocate $17 billion in financial incentives intended to persuade doctors and hospitals to adopt meaningful use of an electronic health record (EHR) and $2 billion for support systems and requisite infrastructure [1, 2]. The purpose of the HITECH Act is to encourage health care providers to leverage HIT tools to achieve quality and efficiency goals. Although this primary value proposition for HIT adoption by health care professionals remains a matter of debate, the potential for secondary benefits such as the reuse of clinical data for research and quality improvement is inevitable [8]. …