Health Care Blog

Survey: Electronic Health Records Incentive Program Is on Track

Ed. note: This is cross-posted from The Health Care Blog. See the original post here.

We continue to see progress in improving the nation’s health care system, and a key tool to helping achieve that goal is the increased use of electronic health records by the nation’s doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers. These electronic tools serve as the infrastructure to implementing reforms that improve care – many of which are part of the Affordable Care Act.

Doctors and hospitals are using these tools to reduce mistakes and hospital readmissions, provide patients with more information that enable them to stay healthy, and allow for rewarding health care providers for delivering quality, not quantity, of care.

The adoption of those tools is reflected today in a release from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics which provides a view of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program and indicates the program is healthy and growing steadily.

In the States: Affordable Care Act Enrollment “Soars,” “Spikes,” “Surges” and “Takes Off”

For the first time today, as part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ regular reporting on enrollment in private health care plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, the department released demographic information on the enrollees, including breakdowns by age.

It’s fascinating and important stuff.  But we were also struck by the way in which local press stepped back and saw the even bigger story – that day after day, month after month, more and more of our friends and neighbors in every part of the country are getting the security and peace of mind of affordable coverage.  Reading the headlines below, it was a bright, shining reminder of one of the big reasons the President fought so hard to pass the Affordable Care Act in the first place.

• Associated Press: “Health care enrollment spikes in Utah in December” 
• Detroit Free Press: “Health insurance enrollment takes off in Michigan, nation for coverage under ACA”
• Detroit News: “Feds: Michigan experiences 11-fold increase in health care sign-ups”
• MLive: “Obamacare signups in Michigan spike in December; see demographic breakdown”
• Sun-Sentinel:  “Obamacare enrollment gains traction in Florida”
• Stevens Point Journal: “Obamacare enrollment soars in Wisconsin”
• Palm Beach Post: “Florida’s Obamacare enrollment surges, as does the nation's”