Budget for health information network far lower than expected costs

The cost of building the National Health Information Network will run approximately $156 billion over the next five years, according to a paper published recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The paper's abstract states:

To achieve an NHIN would cost $156 billion in capitalinvestment over 5 years and $48 billion in annual operatingcosts. Approximately two thirds of the capital costs would berequired for acquiring functionalities and one third for interoperability.Ongoing costs would be more evenly divided between functionalityand interoperability. If the current trajectory continues, thehealth care system will spend $24 billion on functionalitiesover the next 5 years or about one quarter of the cost for functionalitiesof a model NHIN.

 An article in GovernmentHealth IT points out that the White House requested only $125 million for health-releated IT in 2006 while the Senate approved only $95 million. Britain, on the other hand, has dedicated $2 billion a year for the next 10 years to provide electronic health records for 50 million patients by the year 2010.