Can Health Informatics Reduce Health Care Costs?
by Cheryl Proval The answer to that question may appear obvious to imaging informatics professionals, but a study released earlier this year by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) disputed the ability of health informatics to reduce health care cost. Now, all of us in radiology have seen the ability of informatics to reduce imaging costs within the radiology practice, the radiology department, and the enterprise. In radiology, the deployment of health information systems has resulted in an unprecedented increase in radiologist productivity during the past 10 years. We’ve even seen the ability of decision-support systems to reduce the cost of imaging in the greater metropolitan Minneapolis market, in some practices by as much as 10%. Back in May 2008, when the report was issued, the Wall Street Journal suggested that the study had put an end to the hope that the government would make a significant investment in health care IT. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The more we chase
