Estimated cost of NHII to be published in fall
Dr. Rainu Kaushal, who is leading a structure and cost study of a national health information infrastructure, said Friday, "the study should be completed by late summer and published by the fall."
Kaushal and Dr. Eric Poon, who both teach at Harvard Medical School and are both primarily affiliated with the Division of Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, were featured speakers Thursday at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Advocacy Day in Washington D.C. In 2003, the Harvard Interfaculty Program for Health SystemsImprovement funded the first stage of the NHII cost project. Through literature searches, interviews with healthcare management officials in Boston and Denver and the consensus of two expert panel conferences, the study group identified the critical stakeholders, clinical IT functionalities and connectivity elements in an NHII. Based on these results, we are now in the process of modeling thecosts of a NHII, Kaushal said. The Commonwealth Fund has awarded a grant to determine the costs of advancing the current state of IT infrastructure to the realistically ideal state in five years as was defined by the expert panel. William Yasnoff, Health and Human Services' senior adviser to the NHII has said the project could be operating in a limited form in two to three years, but it would be 10 years before a extensive version would be in use.Working with Kaushal and Poon are David Bates, David Blumenthal, Calvin Franz and Blackford Middleton. A survey of health care IT professionals last October found that financial considerations could hinder the development and implementation of the NHII. The HIMSS survey found that while about two-thirds of respondents had at least some awareness of the NHII project, only 4 percent were actively working toward its development. Thirty-four percent cited the project's costs and the lack of defined return on investment as the biggest barrier to NHII. Another 12 percent said interoperability with their healthcare system was the most significant issue, and 10 percent cited HIPAA-related privacy and security issues.
