Healthcare is badly in need of some cost-savings. A new study suggests that a change in the way we keep health records could save billions. Last week the industry got a look at a cost-benefit model for personal health records. According to the report, widespread use of PHRs could save the US healthcare industry between $13 and $21 billion a year.

The Center for Information Technology Leadership (CITL), a nonprofit IT research center based at Partners HealthCare System in Boston, offers the projections in the study “The Value of Personal Health Records.” The study describes an evidence-based model that estimates the industry costs and benefits of four different PHR architectures. The study is the first of its kind to examine the different PHR architectures and show their direct cost savings to healthcare providers and payers, CITL officials say. (more…)

Banking health data like a financial transaction is the simplest solution to healthcare’s networking challenges, says William Yasnoff, MD, PhD, founder of the Health Record Banking Alliance, in the May feature “Taking Medical Records to the Bank.”

So far no one has started a health record bank, though several states are considering or planning them. One question still to answer is how to finance their ongoing operation. There are several options, Yasnoff says. (more…)

Three-quarter of states are pursuing some form of health information exchange (HIE), including the creation of public-private entities to provide statewide governance and interoperability. Promoting these efforts fosters both state and national HIE efforts, according to research by the State-Level Health Information Exchange Consensus Project. (more…)