Today Congress passed a bill -- by remarkably bipartisan 414-1 and 95-0 margins -- that will likely boost national efforts to create Electronic Health Records. The bill prohibits the use of genetic information by health insurers or employers to determine rates or eligibility for coverage, benefits or employment related matters. Depending on the strength of the ultimate protections and remedies, this prohibition on genetic discrimination should alleviate to some extent individual privacy concerns, which were one of the main challenges to widespread adoption of Electronic Health Records.

In 2004, President Bush issued an Executive Order that established a Health Technology Agenda, with one goal being that all Americans should have electronic health records by 2014. This agenda calls for the creation of a National Health Information Network (NHIN), which now falls under the auspices of HHS's Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

In a recent report, INPUT forecasted that the Health IT Market will grow to $4.5 B in 2013 from $3.2 B in 2008, a growth rate of 7.1%. This legislation is likely fuel to that growth.