by Daniel Costello

One of the areas expected to get as much as $20 billion under the federal government's planned economic stimulus package is electronic medical records.

The current stimulus bill says the funds "will update and computerize our health care system to cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes and help reduce health care costs by billions of dollars each year."

Digitizing the nation's medical records is a great idea. It will save lives and reduce skyrocketing health care costs. It may even get a few doctors swimming in paperwork to reconsider putting down their stethoscopes for good. But if it's not done well, or done too quickly, it can cause more problems than it cures.

 

In 2005, the journal Pediatrics released a study that continues to raise huge concern among health care experts and policymakers.

The study followed a 2002 effort at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. The hospital implemented a computerized ordering system — in which a network checks prescriptions for factors such as dosages and drug interactions. Pittsburgh hoped the system would reduce the number of medical errors and mortality. Instead, in the five months after the system was installed, mortality rose among seriously ill children who were transferred to the medical center.

Researchers couldn't pinpoint the exact reason for the worrisome findings. But, especially because there is so little research like it, the study remains a cautionary tale for why we need to be careful when making such big changes to the country's health care system.