Can IT solve the electronic h ea lth records challenge?

Financial and technology issues make Obama's EHR push not so easy to execute.

President Obama's stimulus package addresses very diverse segments of the economy, including health care, education, research, and infrastructure. However, all of these components have one thing in common: the reliance on information technology as the engine powering these stimulus initiatives. A key initiative in the stimulus plan is addressing the issue of establishing electronic health records to reduce health care costs and improve the care itself by making all medical information for a patient available to anyone who treats her. The federal government has advocated for such a system for a decade, but little visible progress has been made.

So what about the Obama plan would change the equation? It's designed to tackle one of the two biggest barriers: the financial penalty that has existed so far for adoption. But it does little to solve the technology issues that will hinder large-scale deployment.