School of Computing and Software Engineering School of Computing
and Software Engineering Southern Polytechnic State University
CSE Center for Health Information Technology   Using HIT Rising
concerns about the ever increasing cost of healthcare in the
United States have further increased the interest in Electronic
Health Records (EHRs) and Electronic Medical Records (EMRs).
EHRs and EMRs are crucial to the success of local, regional, and
national goals to improve patient safety, improve the quality
and efficiency of patient care, and reduce healthcare delivery
costs. For example, the HITECH act, which was passed as part of
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, provides significant
financial incentives to health care providers and hospitals that
can demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHRs/EMRs, and
financial penalties to those providers and hospitals that fail
to do so by 2015.  At the same time, EHRs and their
implementation raise a number of issues that need to be resolved
in order for this tech