NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is the first large institution to move beyond the pilot stage of offering consumer-controlled electronic medical records (EMR), the New York Times reported today. The move toward electronic medical records has gained a lot of attention and momentum in the past few months, with EMR being a cornerstone of the Obama Administration's push to contain healthcare costs. In addition to lowering costs, EMR enhances patient care by improving medical information portability and reducing medical errors.

The government has established a goal of migrating all Americans to electronic medical records by 2014. The government hopes to incentivize the healthcare sector by providing physician practices from $44,000 - $66,000 and up to $11 million in incentives for hospitals. Along with the carrot, the government has threatened the stick of potentially cutting off Medicare/Medicaid funds to providers who fail to adopt EMR by the 2014 deadline.

It's a difficult sell under normal conditions due to the lack of standards, the training requirements (especially for small-to-medium practices) and privacy concerns. The sell is even more difficult, especially for hospitals dependent on Medicare and Medicaid funding. One example is Unversity Medical Center in Nevada. In a '60 Minutes' report, the CEO of UMC stated that a $72 million Medicaid budget cut has hobbled the hospital system's ability to provide critical services like prenatal and outpatient oncology services.

It is against this backdrop that NewYork-Presbyterian has taken the leap into EMR. Overcoming the various obstacles to broader EMR adoption will be a journey down a long, uncertain road. The experiences of pioneers like NewYork-Presbyterian will be an invaluable tool for peers who are hesitating to take the first step.