Lessons From Britain’s Health Information Technology Fiasco

The British digital health project has been a slow-motion train wreck for some time with last week’s announcement mainly confirmation -- and a pledge to change course. Yet the United States is about to begin its own government-funded drive to accelerate the adoption of electronic health records, with Washington set to hand out more than $20 billion in incentive payments over the next five years. So what are the lessons to be learned from the English experience? Lohr asked three of the best-informed experts on this subject, with firsthand experience in government and health policy: Dr. David J. Brailer, the national coordinator for health information technology in the Bush administration; Dr. David Blumenthal, who held that position in the Obama Administration for two years, before recently returning to Harvard; and Richard C. Alvarez, chief executive of the Canada Health Infoway, the nonprofit corporation established to push the adoption of electronic health records in Canada.