Large Employers To Launch EHR Plan : "Wal-Mart Stores, Intel, British Petroleum and other companies next week will announce a plan to provide and promote usage of portable electronic health records for their employees, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Last summer at the request of CDC, Wal-Mart and Intel joined together on the plan after meeting separately with the agency to discuss individual company efforts to reduce health costs. According to the Journal, the goal of the collaboration is to reduce health spending by having patients coordinate their own health care among hospitals, pharmacies and physicians.
According to the Journal, the "employers will insist that health care providers adopt electronic records and prescribing as a condition for future business." Wal-Mart will use its purchasing power to put bar codes on products intended for use in hospitals and clinics. The companies also expect employees to select physicians who are willing to use and update their records, although employee participation is not mandatory, according to the Journal."
EMRs are going to become increasingly prevalent - and if doctors won't adopt them on their own, large corporates and health insurance plans will force them too, sooner or later !
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