Vice President Joe Biden announced almost $1.2 billion in grants to help health-care providers convert to electronic medical records, during a stop in Chicago.
Biden also pitched the importance of the $787 billion stimulus program in stabilizing the economy.
“We stopped the free fall,” the vice president said. “Now we are beginning to ascend again.”
Biden made the health-records announcement at a Chicago hospital during an appearance today with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “You are going to be able to save a lot more lives and save tens of billions of dollars,” Biden told about 100 medical professionals and elected officials.
The grants will be funded by the stimulus program that Congress approved and President Barack Obama signed in February. Biden’s office said the money will help health-care providers qualify for new incentives available in 2010 to those that make substantial use of electronic records.
The vice president pointed to his own medical history and his frustration with repeatedly having to provide the same information, often from a clipboard.
“How many times do I have to fill out, ‘Yeah I had asthma, yeah I had two craniotomies’?” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: John McCormick in Chicago at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net.
Source: Bloomberg News
