The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
Explaining International IT Application Leadership: Health IT
Daniel Castro | September 2009

You can find a PDF copy of the paper in its entirety here.

Health IT is a phrase that includes discussion of topics including efficiency, cost reduction, increasing communication with service providers, records management, as well as medical and drug research.  Castro’s focus in this report is to hone in on those nations that are leaders in Health IT innovation and to determine why.  Nations used in this study were Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Metrics used to determine the successful adoption of Health IT included:

• Adoption of electronic health records (EHR) systems.
• Adoption of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems.
• Use of electronic prescribing.
• Availability of online health portals.
• Applications of telehealth.

Using these metrics Castro was able to determine what nation(s) was leading the way.  These were concluded to be Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.  The conclusions also favor national policy and government leadership in promoting improvement to Health IT.

You can find a PDF copy of the paper in its entirety here.