By Kenneth Corbin

Sen. John Kerry is continuing his push to accelerate the adoption of electronic medical records.

The Massachusetts Democrat on Tuesday introduced legislation to spur family doctors and small-scale practitioners to migrate their paper records to digital format, a goal that most everyone agrees would improve care and lower costs, but one that entails a significant initial expense.

“Electronic medical records and prescriptions are the common sense solution to restricting costs, reducing errors and reforming a broken system,” Kerry said in a statement. “Doctors don’t need convincing — they’ve seen the results.”

Kerry’s bill, the Small Business Health Information Technology Financing Act, would make small-scale doctors eligible for grants from the Small Business Administration to move to electronic records.

“This legislation helps small practices acquire the technology that will allow them to be more efficient and to focus on patient care,” Kerry said.

The federal government has already made it clear that digital records are a priority, earmarking $19 billion for the cause in the February stimulus bill.

In 2007, Kerry introduced legislation to push doctors use digital systems when issuing prescriptions. The 2008 Medicare bill passed with provisions establishing a timetable offering bonus payments to early adopters of the technology, and eventually phasing in penalties for the laggards who continue issuing paper prescriptions.

Above article published on http://blog.internetnews.com/kcorbin/2009/11/kerry-backing-bill-to-boost-el.html