SAN DIEGO – The federal government should spend more money to encourage healthcare’s adoption of electronic health records and other IT tools, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) said Thursday.

Warner, who spoke to attendees at the HIMSS 2006 conference, estimated that EHRs could require upfront investments of close to $7.6 billion, but could save the healthcare system as much as 340 billion.

“I believe that the administration’s current proposals are not bold enough,” he said.

Warner called for incentives to encourage IT adoption and penalties, such as lower reimbursement rates, for those that don’t cooperate.

“We need to move past waiting for the market to sort it out,” said Warner, former co-founder of wireless company Nextel.

Various players from private industry also should step up and agree to exchange data, he said.

Rising healthcare costs and the problem of the uninsured are national security issues, Warner said. Medical bills have become the leading cause of personal bankruptcy and Medicaid costs are exceeding K-12 education costs. Greater use of IT in healthcare could change that, he said.

“I believe it should be a national embarrassment that information technology has revolutionized every part of our economy but healthcare,” Warner said.

Several healthcare IT initiatives are under way in Virginia, including a web-based EHR for long-term care and a statewide immunization registry that is being tested in five pilot sites. Virginia also created a system to collect emergency department data and analyze it for unusual patterns. Eventually, the system will collect data from drug store sales and school attendance records to help public health officials spot disease outbreaks or signs of a bioterrorist attack.