Inexplicable. Why would the American Hospital Association balk at moving into the 21st century like a batch of other countries’ health systems have done, and get up to speed using electronic patient records? Federal law requires hospitals to continue e-record development and to provide patients with their e-records soon after discharge. Now comes a letter from the AHA to the feds saying that hospitals want 30 days to provide the records (which may include post-discharge treatment instructions). Trisha Torrey has a few ideas as to why.
