Health IT, a component of health reform, will likely be part of the economic stimulus package being developed in Congress.

One key supporter includes President-elect Barack Obama. In his weekly radio/internet address this past Saturday, he told listeners:

We'll create hundreds of thousands of jobs by improving health care—transitioning to a nationwide system of computerized medical records that won't just save money, but save lives by preventing deadly medical errors.

In a report released the same day detailing the new administration's plan to save or create at least 3 million jobs, Obama's economic advisors estimated that at least 244,000 of those jobs would come in health care, a sector that could be spurred by stimulus investments in health IT.

CNNMoney has an article yesterday enumerating both the promises and pitfalls of health IT. While noting that costs of full implementation are high (estimates range between $75-100 billion) the benefits may be higher. David Brailer, who was the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology from 2004 to 2006, estimates that health IT could save as much as $200-300 billion a year. Furthermore, as Stephen Schoenbaum, executive director of The Commonwealth Fund's commission on a high performance health system, told CNN, "It's feasible to at least make a lot of progress on this in the next five years."

Yet, a new report from the National Research Council warns: "Current approaches to U.S. health care information technology are insufficient." They are are too monolithic and too often just mimic existing paper systems. Further implementation of Health IT, the NRC argues, must be tied to measurable improvement in quality. David Kibbeover at the Health 2.0 Blog provides a thorough overview of the report's findings.

The report reminds us that health IT must be incorporated within broader changes to our health care system. As Kibbe writes in another post: "Health IT has increasingly become the glue between and across all health care supply chain, care delivery and financing enterprises."

We agree that investments in health IT must include a broad array of components, such as decision support tools, incentives for adoption of electronic medical records,  e-prescribing incentives, etc., and standards for interoperability and patient privacy.

Fortunately, their potential is not lost on lawmakers. The Senate HELP committee will hold a hearing this Thursday at 10 am on Investing in Health IT: A Stimulus for a Healthier America.