One of the first items on President Barack Obama’s agenda is to work with Congress on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, which includes a $20 billion investment in health information technology to help create electronic health records for every American.

"We will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that, within five years, all of America's medical records are computerized," said Mr. Obama in a speech on Jan. 8 at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests."

If the recovery plan is approved, much of the $20 billion will be used for grants for hospitals and physician practices to purchase technology and for higher Medicare reimbursement rates for providers and facilities that use EHR systems, AP reports.

Although it may sound ambitious, Mr. Obama is reiterating the Bush adminstration’s goal for EHRs, set in 2004. However, the $20 billion is a more significant effort to jumpstart investment EHR technology. The Bush administration dedicated $50 million toward the EHR goal.

"[Obama's] timeframe is very ambitious, but there is a need to be able to track data on patients and talk across providers and health care systems," says Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services JudyAnn Bigby, MD. Her state already has a plan to digitize all medical records by 2014.

Currently, 8 percent of the more than 5,000 hospitals, 16 percent of the 5,958 ambulatory surgery centers and 17 percent of the 800,000 physicians in the United States use some kind of EHR, according to survey reports.

—Kent Steinriede