Even with billions of dollars in federal stimulus money available to drive the adoption of electronic health records, information technology companies believe the potential market such money represents could be out of reach if the level of health IT knowledge does not improve.

It's shocking how little even those people who take the time to study the recent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) understand what it means for their practices, said Keith Belton, senior director for product marketing with Nuance Healthcare, a speech recognition technology provider.

"It's painful for us to talk with our own customers," he said. "It's obvious that they and the physician advisory boards they depend on are not getting good information."

Without a quick and substantial improvement, it could take more than a decade before EHRs become part of the mainstream. Certainly, the goal set by President George W. Bush for most Americans to have their own electronic medical record by 2014 is not reachable as things now stand, Belton said.

Nuance, together with a number of other IT and health technology companies, recently formed the EHR Stimulus Alliance to improve the state of education on EHRs, and particularly for what ARRA can do for physicians who want to adopt them.

Other members include networking giants Cisco Systems and Citrix, computer companies Dell, Intel and Microsoft, and business software company Intuit. They all have sizable stakes in the health care market already, though Allscripts is the only Alliance member whose business is wholly based in health care.

The alliance's activities, which were unveiled May 14, include an ambitious 90-day tour of the country by consortium members to educate physicians about ARRA, what they need to do to benefit from its funding and, in general, some of the lessons learned from groups that have already successfully implemented EHRs.

The Alliance will continue its efforts beyond the initial tour through its Web site, and with such things as webinars, blogs and Twitter feeds. The goal is to eventually reach out to some 500,000 physicians nationwide.

Beyond the end of this year, the alliance could expand to tackle other issues such as defining "meaningful use," a central factor in the disbursement of ARRA funds, and also the validation of various health IT standards, Belton said, though that's all at a preliminary stage now.

The upshot for current and future members of the alliance is a faster formation of a health IT market, he said. That's relevant for companies such as Cisco and Citrix, which provide the infrastructure for health IT, for computer companies that use the infrastructure and for health IT solutions providers who build on top of all of that.

"We feel we can substantially shorten the time for adoption," Belton said.