System For Financially Penalizing Providers That Do Not...

system for financially punishing providers that do not comply with the new requirements. As the relevant literature indicates, electronic health records will have man consequences not only for health care providers and their staffs but also for patients and their family members, insurance companies, IT developers, and others. Information on these consequences was gathered from peer-reviewed publications as well other reputable academic, medical, and media sources. In examining the information, it is evident that there are both advantages and disadvantages in the changes that have already taken place, and that there are many predictions of the effects of changes that have yet to occur. In carefully examining and weighing these†¦show more content†¦http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm. Overall, this represents a nearly ten-fold increase in the number of internet users. In the United States, the year 2000 saw approximately 123 million internet users, a figure which has grown to 280 million as of 2014. http://www.statista.com/statistics/276445/numb er-of-internet-users-in-the-united-states/. The breadth of changes to the world economy, society, culture, and science – to name a few broad categories – wrought by the internet has been as equally astonishing as the above statistics. With regard to science and more specifically medicine, the sharing of ideas made possible by the internet (together with information technology and engineering) have also led to groundbreaking advancements that are harnessing the power of technology to directly benefit people’s health. There are now 3-D printers that can print viable human organs and prosthetic limbs, artificial intelligence tools that can converse with patients much like a doctor would – resulting in improved diagnosis and treatment, and bionic limbs and exoskeletons that can help quadriplegics move their arms and paraplegics stand and walk. http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenkotler/2013/12/19/5-medical-technologies-revolutionizing-healthcare/ These are but a few examples of direct healthcare benefits created by the internet and information technology, but there are also indirect benefits such as: the ease with which researchers can