March 2003 • Volume 9 • Number 3 |
BY SHERI PORTER
The AAFP Board of Directors stepped into the future Jan. 18 when it voted to proceed with a plan to establish a foundation that will develop, distribute and support an open-source electronic health record.
Word of the Board's bold proposition got out before the vote and caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal. The paper published a speculative story about the initiative Jan. 16, prior to the Board's meeting in Tucson, Ariz. "The AAFP project could be 'the keystone to the medical information revolution,'" said Paul Ellwood in the WSJ story. Ellwood is founder of the Jackson Hole Group, a health-policy brain trust that advocates electronic medical records.
The key to the development of the Health Information Foundation is the interest and cooperation of other medical associations.
"This is a multistep process, and this Board decision is the first of several significant steps that need to be taken," said Academy EVP Douglas Henley, M.D. "The project will not move forward unless we get other associations to join with us and do the external fund raising necessary to launch the foundation."
It was time for the AAFP to act, said David C. Kibbe, M.D., director of health information technology in the AAFP Socioeconomics Division. "There are many people and institutions in this country who understand that the lack of affordable EHR tools in the doctors' offices is the 'missing link' to a connected, integrated health care system. EHRs are one of the most important requirements to widespread quality, safety and efficiency improvements."
AAFP President James Martin, M.D., of San Antonio said the new foundation will "support development of an EHR system designed by physicians for physicians."
And at an affordable cost. The open-source model eliminates licensing fees, which typically drive up the cost to users.
Don't pull out your checkbook yet, cautioned Henley. Even if the foundation becomes a reality this spring, "it could be late 2004 before we'd see widespread software distribution," he said.
To read more about the project, go to http://www.aafp.org/ehr.xml.
FP Report is published by the
AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2003 by
American Academy of Family Physicians.