RELEASE-0.0 - CLINICAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN THE REAL-WORLD

The industrialization of medical care delivery, compelled by fifteen y ears of reimbursement reform, has given rise to a commercial health in formation technology (HIT) industry. Well financed by Wail Street, the HIT industry offers a variety of ready-made solutions designed to tra nsform a health care organization's raw data resources into useful cli nical information. Many of the. resulting clinical decision-support pr oducts are encumbered by numerous insurmountable intellectual and tech nical problems and, as a consequence, meet with cultural resistance fr om physicians. The long-awaited but costly implementation of electroni c medical records (EMRs) will make these pioneering but flawed efforts obsolete, if EMR development successfully exploits recent technologic al breakthroughs and the ongoing consolidation of health care organiza tions.