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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (52548)	3/25/2009 5:40:06 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 149317

Few U.S. hospitals have electronic medical records reuters.com Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:11pm EDT By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - Less than 2 percent of U.S. hospitals have adopted fully functional electronic medical records, with most citing cost as the biggest barrier, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. "The data collectively show we are at a very early stage in adoption, a very low stage compared to other countries," said Harvard's Dr. David Blumenthal, who last week was tapped to lead President Barack Obama's $19 billion push to increase the use of information technology in healthcare. Obama has made electronic medical records a central piece of his plan to cut costs out of a U.S. healthcare system that consistently ranks lower in quality measures than other rich countries. Blumenthal said the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, clearly shows the United States has room to improve. He said financial incentives in the economic stimulus bill should help, given that most hospitals reporting that cost as their biggest stumbling block. The study by Blumenthal, Dr. Ashish Jha of the Harvard School of Public Health, and others, is based on data collected in 2008 from nearly 3,000 hospitals. It was designed to get a baseline reading on how widely U.S. hospitals have adopted electronic medical records, which promise to reduce medical errors and improve health quality. "Right now, very few hospitals in America have a comprehensive electronic health record," Jha told the briefing. "Only about 1 in 10 meet the definition of a basic electronic health record." A study by the same group last year found just 17 percent of American doctors have switched from conventional paper records to electronic health records, and only 4 percent had fully-functional systems that help them make decisions about patient care or order tests. COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM The group defined a comprehensive system as one that collects doctor and nurse notes, orders tests, helps doctors make decisions about care and is available in every unit of the hospital. They considered a basic system as one that included doctor or nurse notes and was used in at least one care unit, such as radiology. They found that larger, urban teaching hospitals are more likely to have electronic health records than other hospitals, in part because they are better funded. Health information systems cost between $20 million to $100 million, depending on hospital size and complexity of the system. And many hospitals in the survey said they had no way of recouping that investment. Blumenthal said funding purchases is a barrier the stimulus money can address. "For physicians, the cost of adoption could be more or less completely covered. For hospitals, perhaps they would be covered for modest-sized institutions," he said. He said the bill would also offer funding for training and technical support, which many smaller institutions lack. Interoperability -- systems that can easily share information between departments -- was another big hurdle, the study found. Many hospitals have a hodgepodge of systems for different departments, but none of the pieces fit together. "That is one of the reasons hospitals have been slower" to adopt such systems, Blumenthal said, adding that standards requiring electronic medical records to be interoperable was "a widely held core goal." He said the push for electronic health records needs to be part of an overall transformation of healthcare in the United States, including how doctors and hospitals are paid. "It would be wrong to see this as a technology that can be adopted solely on its own. It needs to be adopted in an environment that supports it," he said. (Editing by Philip Barbara) © Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

To: geode00 who wrote (52548)	3/25/2009 7:45:28 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Forecast: Economic recovery not expected before 2010 portland.bizjournals.com Wednesday, March 25, 2009, 11:13am PDT \| A closely watched economic forecast from the UCLA Anderson School of Management predicts the U.S. economy is not likely to begin a recovery until next year. The forecast, released on a quarterly basis, calls for real gross domestic product to decline 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009, 4.5 percent in the second quarter, and another 1.7 percent in the third quarter. But in 2010, the report predicts an average GDP quarterly growth of 2.7 percent and an average of 4.1 percent in 2011. David Shulman, a senior economist with the project, wrote that he expects the current recession will span 19 to 24 months, surpassing the 1981-1982 recession, which dragged on for 16 months. Recovery in the labor market is expected to be slower than in the broader economy, with 7.5 million jobs lost through the entire recession as the unemployment rate spikes to 10.5 percent in the middle of 2010.

To: geode00 who wrote (52548)	3/25/2009 10:30:06 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

Give credit to Timothy Geithner's new toxic asset plan nydailynews.com By Matthew Richardson and Nouriel Roubini Wednesday, March 25th 2009 For the economy to be viable, the financial system must be healthy. For this to occur, the system needs to be cleansed of its poorly performing loans and so-called toxic securities backed by loans. This way, once creditworthy institutions and individuals come to the market looking for capital to borrow, financial firms will be in a position to lend them money. Secretary Timothy Geithner's new toxic asset plan is a serious step in the right direction in that it creates a public-private partnership to buy the troubled assets of financial firms - in other words, to do the necessary cleansing. Up until now, with all the government bailouts, the financial system has been barely treading water. With this plan, it will still be a hard swim, but, at least, there is a path to shore. The plan essentially calls for private asset management firms - private equity, hedge funds, mutual funds, pension funds - to invest side by side with the government. The private investors need the government because there are so many bad loans held in the financial sector that only the government's balance sheet can handle taking them over. The government needs help from private investors so it doesn't get hoodwinked by the banks. Why will investors participate? The deal is structured so that firms will be responsible only for losses on their initial investment. The hope is that by giving this big "freebie," the government will induce investors to participate, and that competition among them will lead to higher offer prices for the loans and securities, thus encouraging banks to sell them. A lot of ifs, but if indeed successful, the plan accomplishes mission No. 1, namely the removal of the bad assets from banks' balance sheets. Even if banks wanted to do this on their own, they can't because the market for these illiquid assets has dried up. But let's not have any illusions. The government bears the risk if and when the investors take a bath on the taxpayer-provided loans. If the economy gets worse, it could get very ugly, very quickly. The administration should be transparent in making clear that there is still a wealth transfer taking place here - from taxpayers to investors and banks. Also, while this plan is designed by the Treasury, many of the big guarantees are being made by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Fed. Why not use only Treasury funds? Well, then the administration would have to deal with Congress. While the populist hysteria of last week suggests this end run might make sense, there is something a little worrying about circumventing the legislative process on such a huge investment. Moreover, there's the issue of transparency - or lack thereof. No one knows what the loans or securities are worth. Competing investors will help solve this by promoting price discovery. But be careful what you wish for. We might not like the answers. Finally, we have to anticipate the likelihood that some banks will resist selling their loans and securities. Why? Currently, the government has been giving them the option to keep holding them with the hope that market conditions will improve. Going forward, the government must insist on the banks' involvement in the new program. The reason that financial institutions must be pressured is that they are the cause of the financial crisis. They took advantage of loopholes to avoid regulatory requirements, taking a huge bet on securities they were never meant to hold in the first place. What happens if removing toxic assets from a bank's balance sheet at near-market prices shows it is effectively insolvent? Then we will have to face the elephant in the room. We may then have to start asking, "Why keep insolvent banks afloat?" And having asked that, we will have to search for ways to manage the ensuing systemic risk. Either way, once the plan is fully implemented, we will be entering a new phase of the financial crisis. The water is choppy. Let's hope we are strong swimmers. *Richardson and Roubini are professors at the NYU Stern School of Business and have contributed to the recently published book, "Restoring Financial Stability: How to Repair a Failed System."