June 29, 2009, 4:10 pm
How Health Records Could Promote Job Growth
By Patrick McGeehan
The push for doctors to convert their patient files to electronic records could spur the creation of dozens of health information technology companies and create thousands of jobs in New York City, according to a study released Monday by a research organization based in Manhattan.
The research organization, the Center for an Urban Future, argues that the city could become a hub for the industry, which is still young and scattered around the country. Its growth is expected to accelerate now that the Obama administration is offering nearly $20 billion in incentives to doctors and hospitals to digitize their records, said Jonathan Bowles, the center’s director, who is a co-author of the study.
“I don’t think any other city is better positioned to capitalize on this than New York,” Mr. Bowles said. “With 65 hospitals, 1,300 outpatient clinics and 30,000 doctors, this is a huge boon waiting to happen. The potential is huge for economic development.”
Mr. Bowles said the city’s Economic Development Corporation should add the health information sector to its short list of industries that could grow significantly and help to achieve the Bloomberg administration’s goal of diversifying the city’s economy. Unlike biotechnology, one of the industries city officials are trying to develop, health information technology does not require expensive laboratories or a lot of space, Mr. Bowles said.
He cited a national study that estimated that the stimulus plan could create as many as 212,000 jobs in health information nationwide. His center’s study found that New York was second only to Chicago as a home base for companies providing these services to hospitals. Chicago has 47 of these companies and New York has 43, while there were only 14 in the San Francisco area, according to the study.
“Silicon Valley does not have a stranglehold on health information technology as it does in so many other sorts of technology,” Mr. Bowles said.
“There’s so much business to be had. But it’s not clear that New York is going to realize its full potential with health I.T. There are some large and influential companies in this industry that are based outside New York.”
AI
