A decade ago, electronic health records were aggressively promoted for a number of reasons. Proponents claimed that they would facilitate the sharing of health information, reduce error rates in health care, increase health care efficiency, and lower costs. Enthusiasts included the technology companies, consultants, and IT specialists who stood to reap substantial financial rewards from a system-wide switch to electronic records.
Even some health professionals shared in the enthusiasm. Compared to the three-ring-binders that once held the medical records of many hospitalized patients, electronic records would reduce errors attributable to poor penmanship, improve the speed with which health professionals could access information, and serve as searchable information repositories, enabling new breakthroughs through the mining of “big data.”
To promote the transition to electronic records, the federal government launched what it called its meaningful use program, a system of financial rewards and penalties intended to ensure that patients would benefit. Naturally, this raised an important question: If digitizing health records was such a good idea, why did the federal government need to impose penalties for health professionals who failed to adopt them? Perhaps electronic health records were not so self-evidently beneficial as proponents suggested.
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