When it comes to creating technology that easily exchanges patients' medical information among health care providers, the Model T Ford hasn't even been invented yet, according to a panel of experts.
Even the ability to provide more comprehensive patient care by using technology is in its infancy, said Robert Kolodner, the former national coordinator for Health IT at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"There are people dying today because of a lack of technology. Health care delivery has to innovate," Kolodner said.
Kolodner was the keynote speaker at the Georgia Tech Research Institute Conference Center in Atlanta on Monday, a meeting that brought together leaders in business, technology, health care, academia and government to discuss health information technology.
Speakers at the summit outlined the problems that come with the lack of technology and a comprehensive exchange of medical records from various facilities. Medical errors are the fourth-leading cause of deaths in the U.S, with almost 100,000 people dying every year from preventable errors.
About 96 percent of people in the U.S. use the Internet at some point in their lives, with 90 percent using it to buy items and 84 percent using it for personal banking, according to information given at the summit.
However, less than half the country uses the Internet to search for treatment options and only 19 percent use it to compare the costs of health care services.
The state of Georgia is leading the way in implementing technology and will be one of the first to use a system for providers to exchange information statewide, Dennis White said. White is chairman of the Georgia Health Information Exchange Inc., a nonprofit created in 2010 to help facilitate vital health information and accelerate the pace of health information technology development across Georgia.
Georgia is in the process of implementing what is known as "Direct Project," a simple, secure way for participants to send health information from provider to provider as part of national health care reform. White said the program should be workable by the end of April.
The next roll out will be Connect, an software program that allows exchange of medical records on a network. Connect is much more complicated and will take longer to implement than the Direct Project, White said.
Georgia is also working on creating a lab hub to share lab results, implementing e-prescribing for drugs and sharing immunization records, White said.
"What we need to focus on is: How does it help the patient?" White said. "It's going to take all of us - providers, payers and patients - to provide better care and lower costs."
Tennessee began to implement a health information exchange in 2009 and secured additional federal funding in 2010 to work on the project.