Business
Nationwide electronic health network will cost $276 bln
The cost to doctors and hospitals of installing computers, networking equipment and software to build an electronic health network will amount to an estimated $276 bln over the next 10 years.
The cost to doctors and hospitals of installing computers, networking equipment and software to build an electronic health network will amount to an estimated $276 bln over the next 10 years. The annual savings from digital patient records would be considerably lower - about $24 bln a year - if the communications standards were not fully open, the study by American Health Information Management Association, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the Liberty Alliance Project found.