Funding for electronic medical records expected as early as May, already stimulating business

Modern Healthcare: Funding to help doctors and hospitals buy electronic medical records could begin to flow through the Medicare program as early as May 2011, a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services official said Wednesday. But, the final shape of the program remains unclear as CMS works to implement 800 pages of new regulations. "We're now working toward actually making all of this a reality, and we have less than six months to do it," the official said (Conn, 7/28).

The Buffalo (N.Y.) News: The expectation of that funding is already having an impact on companies that trade in electronic medical records. "The push to bring electronic medical records to hospitals and doctors' offices is pushing up Computer Task Group's sales and profits. The Buffalo-based information technology company said Tuesday that its second-quarter profits jumped by 37 percent as the long-awaited push to expand electronic medical records systems nationwide helped boost CTG's sales by 22 percent" (Robinson, 7/28).

Separately, "a raft of new technology is making it possible for adult children to monitor to a stunningly precise degree the daily movements and habits of their aging parents," The New York Times reports. "The purpose is to provide enough supervision to make it possible for elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home — a goal almost universally embraced as both emotionally and financially desirable. With that in mind, a vast spectrum of companies, from giants like General Electric to start-ups like iReminder of Westfield, N.J., which has developed a system to notify families if loved ones haven't taken their medicine, are looking for a piece of the market of families with an aging relative" (Stout, 7/28).