New HIT Studies Project Nationwide Health IT Costs and Benefits

Rainu Kaushal, MD, MPH, Staff Physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cornell Weill Medical College, New York, and John Glaser, PhD, CIO, and Eric Pan, MD, CITL Senior Scientist, Partners Healthcare, Boston, discuss findings that suggest a “model” national health IT network would cost $156+ billion in initial capital investment and $48 billion in annual operating costs over five years. The study, published in the Aug. 2 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, was conducted by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital and funded jointly by the Harvard Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement and the Commonwealth Fund. A panel of health care officials provided researchers with a set of minimum requirements for physician offices, hospitals, pharmacies, clinical labs, nursing homes and home health agencies, and for deploying such a network nationwide. After discussing the conclusions, Glaser and Kaushal will discuss the implications of this study for provider organization IT strategies and plans. In addition, Amanda Adkins, Director of Government and Industry, Cerner Corporation, will add perspectives from a recent 2-year study by the RAND Corporation (RAND HIT Project) examining the potential benefits of health information technology (HIT). Findings reveal the dramatic potential of HIT to save money and lives. It benefited from the guidance of a Steering Committee chaired by Dr. David Lawrence, former Chairman and CEO, Kaiser Foundation Health Plans and Hospitals, and was sponsored by Cerner, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson and Xerox.