Several major technology companies are notably absent from the EHR Stimulus Alliance, a newly formed group that aims to educate U.S. doctors about the benefits of electronic health records.
The alliance, which promises to educate 500,000 physicians about EHR in 200 days, includes companies such as Nuance, Intel, Dell and Microsoft. Missing from the list are major EHR players such as Cerner, Google and GE, which recently launched "Healthymagination," a long-term, $6-billion commitment to improve health information technology. Also missing is Medsphere, a promising start-up trying to help hospitals implement VistA, an open-source EHR system. The alliance did not respond to a question about the group's membership.
The EHR Stimulus Alliance has planned briefings, roundtables, presentations and webcasts on the benefits of EHR. The group also hopes to inform medical professionals about government incentives available to doctors who adopt electronic health records.
The massive effort is a sign of how anxious companies are to get a slice of the EHR pie. President Barack Obama is making a push to digitize all health records by 2014 and has allotted $20 billion dollars in the stimulus bill that will go toward transitioning to EHR.
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