Billions of stimulus dollars meant to spur doctors to switch to electronic record-keeping may not be enough to do the job, a private consulting firm said Monday. The stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed last month contained S$19 billion for health information technology, including $17 billion for incentives and penalties to encourage doctors and hospitals to abandon paper record-keeping and go high-tech beginning in 2011. However, the high cost of installing electronic records systems could outweigh the incentives and penalties for failing to comply.
