Electronic Health Records and the Quest to Achieve the "Triple Aim".

I n 2004, President George W. Bush called for interoperable electronic health records (EHRs) for the majority of Americans within 10 years and established the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (HIT), directed by Dr. David Brailer, whose Framework for Strategic Action (1) envisioned a consumer-centric, informationrich health care system through adoption of HIT. In 2009, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (2). Simply having EHRs was not sufficient; hospitals and providers needed to demonstrate “meaningful” use of the system. David Blumenthal stated, “Congress apparently sees HIT . as a means of improving the quality of health care, the health of populations and the efficiency of health care systems” (2), paraphrasing Donald Berwick’s “Triple Aim” of health care reform (3).