>Electronic medical records: Rx for coordinated care
The move by New Jersey doctors to using electronic medical records is gathering speed, as federal subsidies and looming financial penalties are expected to encourage physicians to go digital by 2015.
Thus far, the federal government has given the state’s doctors $38 million in subsidies to help cover the expense of converting patient records from paper charts to electronic medical records. Up to 27 percent of the state’s doctors have made the move, according to Colleen Woods, New Jersey Health Information Technology coordinator. She estimates that by 2015, when Medicare plans to impose financial penalties on doctors who have not digitized their records, that figure could exceed 80 percent. (Fitzgerald, NJ Spotlight)