iHealthBeat has an article detailing the results of a RAND corp. study that says a EMR network will cost over $100 billion over 15 years: ‘…Implementation of a nationwide electronic health records network would take about 15 years and cost hospitals about $98 billion and physicians about $17 billion, according to a study by Richard Hillestad and colleagues at RAND, the AP/Las Vegas Sun reports (Neergaard, AP/Las Vegas Sun, 9/14).

Over the 15-year period, the average annual cost to hospitals would be $6.5 billion and the average annual cost to physicians would be $1.1 billion (CQ HealthBeat [1], 9/14). However, if 90% of providers adopted such a network, annual savings would total $81 billion, including $77 billion from improved efficiency and $4 billion from reduced medical errors, the study found (AP/Las Vegas Sun, 9/14)…’ Why does this seem incredibly over-priced to me? Perhaps if we just string dollar bills between each clinic and hospital the same result could be achieved?