The White House on Monday announced it would free up as much as $1 billion in grants to help groups, doctors, and communities hire and train health care workers as a way both to create jobs and improve health care. (Quinton, 2011) Okay, on the face of it this looks like good news.  I mean, a “grant” means to “transfer or convey” (Dictionary.com, 2011). If I “grant” you $1 billion, then I am transferring to you the sum of $1 billion.  That is not the way the government sees it – trust me, I worked there for 28 years, and I know how they think.

A “grant” from the Federal government means, “the government is going to convey a sum of money to you with certain conditions, codicils, and provisos.  In this case, the “grant” is to “hire and train health care workers “ (Quinton, 2011) for the purpose of lowering the cost of healthcare. Now let me see if I have this straight.  If I hire and train more healthcare workers with “grant” money, then when the money runs out I still have to pay these workers, which I have to charge the patients for, or I have to lay off the new healthcare workers which increases the unemployment rolls.

“Today’s grants can be a catalyst for the kind of innovation we need,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a news conference. (Quinton, 2011). Excuse me? I always thought necessity was the Mother of invention.

So the question becomes have we really matured when it comes to healthcare information technology? The initial talk about healthcare IT was about reducing cost and providing better care.  I believe we have put to rest the notion that healthcare IT is going to save anyone money. At the same time, we have not quite solidified the notion of better care through IT. News services such as the Huffington Post Investigative Fund have discovered disparities in healthcare IT. Some of these have led to serious errors in health care and shown that a total reliance on IT can result in serious complications or even death.

When it comes to the abundance of information concerning healthcare IT there is certainly no lack of availability. A search on YouTube for Healthcare Information Technology gives over 7,700 hits running the gamut from testimonials, to sales pitches, to infomercials.  A similar search on Google results in over 21 million hits.  While the increase of information and exposure of information technology in healthcare is certainly welcome, has it led to a process of maturation, or merely a process of oversight?

President Reagan said, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help”. With the advent of government oversight on healthcare information technology, can a process of maturation take place? Without government oversight, would the advances of information technology in healthcare be safe?

The resultant debate should center on how to use information technology to commoditize healthcare. Only then can we truly lower the cost of healthcare for the American, or the World consumer.  We have seen this in recent years, but have not recognized it as such, or have not touted it as such.  The availability of flu shots at your local pharmacy, over the counter pregnancy tests, home glucometers and even automated blood pressure monitors are all advances that have been made by making a trusted medical procedure into a commodity.  This has given the trained medical professionals the ability to work on those cases where there is no standard answer, no standard diagnosis, and to use the education for which they strived and paid. The use of information technology in healthcare should be focused on more access to healthcare – more commoditized healthcare – not more government oversight which will only stifle innovation and stagnate commoditization.