Stimulus Funds for E-Records Augur Big Windfall for Small Health Firms

By JACOB GOLDSTEIN

"Big companies including General Electric Co. will likely profit from the billions of federal stimulus dollars going to doctors who buy and use electronic health records. But little-known niche players could be among the biggest winners.

One such company is eClinicalWorks, a closely held firm in Westborough, Mass. The company, founded a decade ago by computer-programmer Girish Kumar Navani, his cousin and his physician brother-in-law, now has about 750 employees and expects $100 million in revenue this year. In the next few years, the company plans to hire 500 more people, up from 150 before the stimulus bill was approved."

"The $787 billion stimulus package Congress approved in February promises more than $20 billion in outlays for health-information technology, coming mostly between 2011 and 2015, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. Physicians using electronic records will be eligible for more than $40,000 each in Medicare incentive payments over several years starting in 2011. Hospitals can also qualify for millions of dollars in incentive payments. Doctors and hospitals not going electronic by 2015 will be subject to penalties."

An electronic health record, or electronic medical record, (EMR), replaces a patient's paper file. EMR systems can incorporate safety features such as automatically alerting a doctor if a patient has prescriptions for drugs with dangerous interactions. Proponents believe EMRs can also reduce wasteful spending from unnecessary testing, help doctors spot trends in their practices and enable agencies such as Medicare to pool anonymous medical data to track public-health issues.

LIN-CUM, Inc. is contracted with several major regional health systems, medical clinics, professional groups and hospitals throughout Arizona, in bringing these centers and offices into the "paperless" offices we've been talking about for decades! to discuss how we can make this happen for YOU, installing scanning workstations and systems in your offices and departments, employing top quality, fully supported scanners such as Kodak and Fujitsu. Simultaneously, we perform the backfile conversion at our operations center in Phoenix; this completes the conversion and arms you with a totally electronic system in the shortest time and most cost-effectively. (See our Document Management) and Workstations pages) Contact Lin-Cum at 602-233-1230, or email clientservices@lincum.com