In 2009, the federal government decided that doctors and hospitals were slow to take up electronic health records (EHR).  Isn’t everyone fed up with filling out forms and having his or her medical records filed in manila folders?  So the feds decided to dish out $30 billion to pay doctors and hospitals to install EHRs credentialed by a new government agency, the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC). By July 2014, $25 billion of these payments had gone out the door.  Unfortunately, results indicate that this federal spending has perverted the natural adoption of EHRs, and may have even lowered the quality of care. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the payments would boost EHR adoption rates to about 70 percent for hospitals and about 90 percent for physicians by 2019. It is unlikely that these targets will be achieved.  According to a report issued by the ONC last year, 59 percent of hospitals...(Read Full Article)