Moving hospitals out of paper records and into seamless digital connectivity has been tougher than anyone but hard-core skeptics

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问题     Moving hospitals out of paper records and into seamless digital connectivity has been tougher than anyone but hard-core skeptics thought seven years ago, when the federal government began pouring billions of dollars into a push to make electronic medical records the universal standard. Computerization of health care data would quickly get patients’ health information where it needs to go, improving care and cutting costs.
    That was the idea—but the path to it has been rocky. Overall, progress has been blocked, among other obstacles, by reluctance to share information with competitors, software from different suppliers that can’t communicate, physicians who have pushed back at hospitals where they had to struggle with unaccustomed computerized routines and the expense, often exceeding $1 billion in large hospital systems, of retooling outdated computers.
    As things now stand, medical records are often incomplete and vital patient information is frequently hiding on health care islands—parked at one large health system but inaccessible to a hospital outside the system where that same patient may have just arrived in the Emergency Room. Or records aren’t sent to primary care providers, leaving them in the dark about the course of a patient’s treatments.
    Amid continued concerns that digitized patient data still isn’t getting to the point of care, and facing pressure from providers and lawmakers who argue that hospitals and other health organizations are being compelled to do too much too fast despite the perception that they should be well down the road, the Department of Health and Human Services recently issued final rules on an advanced set of requirements to make electronic health information more readily available to clinicians. The new standards are promised to be simpler and more flexible, responding to complaints from hospitals and physicians.
    The big picture of hospital connectivity in the U.S. today is "profoundly negative," says Eric Topol, author of "The Patient Will See You Now". "There’s been tremendous resources put into this and little to show for it," he says. "We have a country characterized by information-blocking, where there is a lack of connectivity from one health system to another, and patients are the victims because of all this Tower of Babel."
    Topol points out that countries from Australia to Estonia have broken down barriers to information sharing and given patients greater ownership of their health care by putting their data into their own hands. He believes this model should replace the current "paternalistic" system where the control of patient information remains firmly with hospitals and other health providers. Many places around the world have instead adopted the patients-own-their-data model, Topol says. "Then you don’t worry so much about blocking, because the patient has the goods."
What promoted the Department of Health and Human Services to issue the final rule?

选项 A、Concerns over the accessibility of the electronic medical data.
B、Pressure from patients to receive prompt medical treatment.
C、The perception that hospital is going the wrong road.
D、Complaints about the simplicity of the old standard.

答案A

解析 题干所述的“卫生与公众服务部作出最后的规定”是第四段首句主句的内容。主句之前的两个状语就是促成该机构这么做的原因。其一是,担心电子数据不能到达医疗地点(digitized patient data,still isn’t getting to the point of care),即数据的可得到性,A项所述与此对应。第二个状语较长,大意是说医院机构和立法者给予政府压力,他们认为医疗机构被迫做得太多和太快。其他三项均与此内容不相符。
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