Beginning next year, tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money will flow to doctors and hospitals to help them buy computerized medical record systems as part of the economic stimulus package.
But, while road and bridge construction can be marked with nifty signs, figuring out what that might mean for your community has been tough 鈥� until now.
A company called that helps hospitals boot up open-source electronic medical records, now offers a calculator that uses government formulas and public hospital data to show just how much money is on the line for a given facility.
For instance, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore will be eligible for more than $11.5 million in stimulus funds between next year and 2014, according to the calculator. The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York could get $13.6 million over those years. And, California鈥檚 Stanford Hospital could bring in $8.2 million. Many hospitals, including these three, had already begun setting up e-health systems before the stimulus money came into play.
You can check your local hospitals to see how much of the e-health windfall will land in your backyard. First, a hospital鈥檚 Medicare provider ID (you can search by name, city and state here), then input that number into .
To get that money, however, hospitals have to meet certain drafted by the federal government. Since Medsphere鈥檚 e-health software is free 鈥� so-called open-source software that you could download from home 鈥� the firm is hoping to turn a profit by helping hospitals set up e-records and meet those federal requirements. They developed the calculator as a marketing tool to show potential clients that much of their fees are offset by the stimulus cash.
To that end, the calculator also shows the five-year cost of Medsphere鈥檚 support services for any hospital, based in part on the facility鈥檚 size. For Stanford, which is not a client, the fee would be more than $13.5 million, the calculator says. Ouch!
But, by making those prices public, Medsphere is staking out ground in a turf war between open-source advocates and big-name firms that develop their own proprietary programs, often at higher prices. Medsphere executive Rick Jung challenged the proprietary companies to publish their own prices in an interview.
In response to our questions, a spokeswoman for Cerner, a leading proprietary firm, sent an e-mail saying her company鈥檚 prices are 鈥渃onfidential in nature鈥� and vary based on each clients needs. A Siemens Healthcare spokesperson said the firm does not 鈥減ublicly provide pricing information.鈥� A request for prices from GE Healthcare, another major vendor, was not immediately returned.
Fred Trotter, a fan of open-source medical records and self-described 鈥渉acktivist,鈥� said Medsphere is charging 鈥減remium鈥� rates, but that it鈥檚 likely a deal compared to 鈥減roprietary solutions.鈥�
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