In 2009, when the U.S. Congress passed the HITECH Act there was an optimism that the legislation would push the medical profession into the information age. As a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the United States Government invested tens of billions of dollars into improving the healthcare industry’s use of information technology, and mandated medical practices to implement IT systems that enhance the flow of electronic health records to improve (and speed up) patient care and to try and use that built-in efficiency cut down on skyrocketing medical costs.
