In a sign that the government will likely stay focused on spurring innovation and wider adoption of electronic health records, President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to call for further investment in technology.
In his speech, the president highlighted several areas of success, and called on lawmakers to recognize the importance of funding these programs. He said that innovation lies at the heart of the nation’s ability to provide a good quality of life for all its citizens.
In 2009, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provided billions of dollars to fund health IT infrastructure projects. Out of that initiative came the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services' electronic health records incentive program, which made $19 billion available to healthcare providers that adopt the technology.
Justin Barnes, vice president of government affairs at Greenway Medical, told Government Health IT that the speech signals a high level of support for health IT going forward, which bodes well for the industry.
"While the debate will certainly continue on exactly how we go about creating and implementing policy, it was very encouraging to hear the increased vigor supporting additional investments in innovation around biomedical research and information technology," he told the news source.