Healthcare & Technology
May/June 2006

Healthcare is the last industry to move from paper to digital.

Consider this:

44,000 people die annually from avoidable medical errors; equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every other day!

(HIMSS, David Clark, Director of Integration & Interoperability)

It is estimated that HIT can reduce healthcare costs up to 20% per year – by saving time and reducing duplication and waste.

(www.hhs.gov)

On May 11, 2005, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt (above) issued a news report citing investment in information technology (IT) as an essential, high priority for the American health care system and the U.S. economy.

Incorporating IT into the US health system could save $170-200 billion per year.

(HIMSS, David Clark, Director of Integration & Interoperability)

U.S. spending on healthcare was 48% higher than Norway, the second-highest spender at $3,807 per capita in 2003.

(G.F. Anderson; B.K. Frogner; R.A. Johns; and U. Reinhardt in Health Journal)

However...

The U.S. - at 43 cents per capita - is spending less than a 10th of the second-lowest country, Australia on health technology. Canada is spending $31.85 per person and Germany $21.20.

(G.F. Anderson; B.K. Frogner; R.A. Johns; and U. Reinhardt in Health Journal)

At the end of the 1990s, most industries were spending about $8,000 per worker for IT. But the health care industry was investing only about $1,000 per worker.

(www.hhs.gov)