经济学人283:美国的医疗记录数字化会是巨大商机吗?

 　　Technology firms and health care

　　科技公司和医疗保健

　　Heads in the cloud

　　头文字“云”

　　Digitising America’s health records could be a huge business. Will it?

　　美国的医疗记录数字化会是巨大商机吗？

　　ALTHOUGH most rich countries, and some leapfrogging poor ones like India, are adopting electronic medical records, doctors’ surgeries in America still mostly do things the old-fashioned way. Determined¹ to change this, the Obama administration has passed laws that will flood the health-care industry with $28 billion in subsidies² over the next few years to persuade doctors and hospitals to go digital. Aneesh Chopra, the White House’s chief technology officer, says the promise of this money is already boosting investment. The big tech firms have convinced themselves that the health industry will be the next to embrace cloud computing³.

　　尽管大多数富裕国家以及一些有着跳跃式发展的贫困国家，比如印度，都采用了电子病历，但在美国，医生们的诊疗室多数仍按传统方式运行。奥巴马政府决心改变这一现状，他通过了一项即将遍及卫生保健行业的法律，投放280亿美元的补贴，说服医院和医生在未来几年做到数字化（管理）。白宫的首席技术长官Aneesh Chopra宣称，（政府）对这笔资金的允若已经推动了投资，大型技术公司都确信，医疗行业将是下一个被纳入云计算的目标。

　　In principle, it makes sense to put health records into the “cloud”; the factories for mass-producing digital services that are the IT industry’s next big thing should be ideal places to store, maintain and process patient and clinical data. Doctors’ surgeries, hospitals and patients would all be able to retrieve⁴ and manipulate the data remotely, over the internet. Bridget van Kralingen, a senior executive at IBM, sees health care providing maybe one-tenth of the $7 billion in revenues her firm sees from cloud computing by 2015.

　　原则上讲，把医疗记录放到“云”里是有其意义的。IT行业的下一个大事件是，批量生产数字服务的工厂，应该是放置、存储并处理病患和诊所数据的理想场所。医生的诊疗室、医院和患者都将可以通过网络远程检索及操作这些数据。IBM的高级执行官Bridget van Kralingen预见到，截至2015年，她的公司将从云计算中获得70亿美元的利润，其中的十分之一有可能来自医疗保健服务。

　　But some scepticism is in order. A scheme to computerise the medical records of every patient in England has turned into a spectacularly expensive fiasco. Gartner, a technology consultancy, observes in a recent report that tech firms are rushing to rebrand their products with the latest “cloud” buzzword, “whether they actually are cloud offerings or not.” The danger is that America’s health services have foisted⁵ upon them whatever the industry has to sell, rather than what is needed.

　　但是，存在一些质疑也是合理的。英国使用计算机处理所有患者的病历，结果该计划变成了烧钱的无底洞。高德纳技术咨询公司在最近的一份报告中注意到，无论是否提供云服务，科技公司们都一窝蜂儿地用最近的热词“云”来重塑其品牌。危机之处在于，美国的医疗服务不追求行业需求，而是一味骗售自己提供的所有产品。

　　Another reason not to get too excited is the reflexive conservatism and technophobia of medical folk. Jonathan Bush, the boss of athenahealth, which uses the cloud to digitise health firms’ administrative⁶ systems, calls the medical industry “anti-innovation”. He reckons the average American doctors’ surgery still handles 1,000 faxes a day.

　　另一个让人不容乐观的原因，是下意识的保守主义和传统医学的技术恐惧。（医疗服务公司）athenahealth的老板Jonathan Bush称医疗行业是“反创新”，他的公司利用云技术将保健公司的行政管理系统数码化。他估算到，平均每天，美国医生的诊疗室仍需处理1000份传真。

1 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

2 subsidies   

n.补贴，津贴，补助金( subsidy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• European agriculture ministers failed to break the deadlock over farm subsidies. 欧洲各国农业部长在农业补贴问题上未能打破僵局。
• Agricultural subsidies absorb about half the EU's income. 农业补贴占去了欧盟收入的大约一半。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 computing   

n.计算

参考例句：

• to work in computing 从事信息处理
• Back in the dark ages of computing, in about 1980, they started a software company. 早在计算机尚未普及的时代（约1980年），他们就创办了软件公司。

4 retrieve   

vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索

参考例句：

• He was determined to retrieve his honor.他决心恢复名誉。
• The men were trying to retrieve weapons left when the army abandoned the island.士兵们正试图找回军队从该岛撤退时留下的武器。

5 foisted   

强迫接受，把…强加于( foist的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She resented having the child foisted on her while the parents went travelling abroad. 她对孩子的父母出国旅行卻硬要她来照看孩子这事很反感。
• The author discovered that the translator had foisted several passages into his book. 作者发现译者偷偷在他的原著中插入了几段。

6 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。