WASHINGTON – The $787 billion economic stimulus package signed by president Obama Feb. 17 includes $19 billion toward health information technology.

While many healthcare IT industry insiders welcomed the spending as providing a needed impetus to pushing the healthcare system into the 21st century, many also worried about getting IT done right.

"I think it's a terrible idea by the government to invest in healthcare IT  -  in EMR systems  -  without investing in standards," said Marc Probst, CIO at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City.

Probst and others asserted that without interoperability, electronic medical records would offer only a marginal improvement over paper records.

"The end goal isn't really widespread EMRs, it's using them  -  and related HIT  -  to drive performance improvement in priority areas of importance to key stakeholders," said Jerry Osheroff, MD, chief clinical informatics officer, healthcare, at Thomson Reuters.

Of the total $19 billion for healthcare IT,  $17 billion is allotted to incentives for adoption and $2 billion for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to use for grants to help providers purchase healthcare IT.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, policy changes in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1) are expected to result in $30 billion additional net bonuses for providers who adopt and use certified healthcare IT products over the next 10 years.