The Six Toughest Policy Issues

Across the country, groups of CIOs, healthcare IT experts, and attorneys are sitting in committee rooms and holding conference calls trying to solve vexing policy and governance issues raised by the prospect of interoperable electronic health records (EHRs). With a focus on making the most of short-term federal incentives, these policymakers are wrestling with a host of thorny issues that they have never had to tackle before or ones that have previously seemed intractable. Some of these are central to the current debate about spurring health IT adoption; others await resolution once more health information exchanges get off the ground.