This is an excerpt from a larger article on fixing the health care system from the Jan/Feb issue of AARP.

Controlling costs; Obama has said improving health information technology could lower costs. He views this as an economic stimulus, noting that helping health providers set up electronic medical records would be a "smart" investment and could reduce medical errors. Congressman Max Baucus calls for investing in health IT and retraining health workers to gain access to science-based medical information. But Carol Diamond, M.D., of the Markle Foundation, an IT research group, says expanding the use of electronic information may be hindered by security concerns, legal issues and technological barriers. Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research organization, estimates that improvements in health IT could save $88 Billion over 10 years, though no gains would be realized in the first few years.

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