Heather Havenstein

The search for a new point person to head the national effort to foster the use of electronic health records is being stymied on several fronts, according to health care executives.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the first 20 EHR products to be certified as meeting national standards for functionality, interoperability and security.

Ten years after HIPAA became a U.S. federal law, health insurers are scrambling to make changes to their IT systems in order to comply with one of its last major requirements.

While parts of the private sector have begun to adopt electronic medical record (EMR) software, many physician practices and regional health IT partnerships still are struggling with absorbing the costs of the software.

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Users from the health care community said the resignation of the Bush Administration's point man for health IT is unlikely to seriously hurt the national move to adopt electronic health records.

With the growth of the grass-roots organizations beginning to share patient data regionally, the George Bush administration's point man for health IT wants to establish standards and guidelines for how these groups are governed and financed.