Americans made well …show more content…
Now for some good news: the administrative waste could be largely eliminated by a massive investment in a nationwide health care record system based on standardized record formats, and the participation of all elements in the health care provider industry.
The United States spends about $2 trillion on healthcare, and about $700 billion or one-third is “waste,” loosely defined as costs that could be shed if the healthcare industry followed best practices. This waste is a major reason why the United States has the highest-cost medical system per capita in the world. Among the many sources of waste are fraud, duplicate tests, unnecessary care, medical mistakes, administrative inefficiency, redundant paperwork, and a paper-based health records system. The outdated administrative procedures and records situation causes an estimated 25 percent of the total “waste,” or about $175 billion a year.
There’s more good news about medical records: the new Obama administration in February 2009 set aside
$19 billion to fund a Health Information Technology program as a part of the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009. The goal: computerize