The chief executive of health information-technology concern Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions Inc. (MDRX) expects the Obama administration to aggressively promote electronic-prescribing and electronic-health-records initiatives, although perhaps with a smaller monetary investment than the candidate promoted during the campaign.

"Our view is that they will use a combination of the [government's new] carrot-and-stick programs paired with investment," Glen Tullman told Dow Jones Newswires Monday, referring to new policies at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to financially reward doctors who use e-prescribing systems and to eventually penalize those who don't.

Tullman served on the Obama campaign's health-care policy committee.

"I think he is absolutely committed to using information technology as a key part of his platform. I also think that we should assume that there will be strong investments," Tullman said. "I'm just not sure that there will be $50 billion," a figure Obama earlier said he wanted the government to invest in electronic health records.

Obama, in unveiling his economic recovery plan over the weekend, listed modernization of the health-care system as a major component. He advocated use of electronic medical records for all patients and advanced technology in every hospital and physician's office.

Obama is likely to use money already allocated to health-care spending, rather than new dollars, Tullman said.

Tullman's company, Allscripts, includes e-prescribing software as part of its electronic-health-records product, and, through a national coalition it helped to establish, also offers free, stand-alone e-prescribing technology to every physician in the U.S.

In the past 12 months, a great deal of funding has entered the health information-technology space, starting with a regulatory change that allowed hospitals to provide funding to physicians to buy e-prescribing or broader electronic-health-records systems, Tullman said.

In addition, CMS has adopted a policy of increasing Medicare payments to doctors who use e-prescribing technology, and will start penalizing those who don't use it in 2011, he noted. Some states have provided grants as well, he said.

"That change in CMS has absolutely driven our results" in the part of Allscripts' business devoted to e-prescribing software, Tullman said. In the past 12 months, the number of physicians using Allscripts' free e-prescribing product has at least doubled to more than 20,000, he said. (The company has more than 150,000 physician clients, about 60,000 of whom use e-prescribing technology and 90,000 of whom use practice-management software.)

"What that tells us is that the CMS carrot-and-stick approach has been successful in getting physicians' attention," he said of the program launched in July.

As for a proposed $50 billion investment in health-care IT?

"Even prior to his election, Sen. Obama and [former rival] Sen. McCain at the time had said that, given the financial crisis, they might have to adjust the numbers that are in both [candidates'] plans. Since then, the financial crisis has become much worse," Tullman said.

"My view of the situation is that...they will be forced, given all of the other demands on the resources that the government has available, to either spend that money more slowly" or have a smaller amount, Tullman said, speaking for himself and not the Obama team. With incentives, he said, "I think they can still accomplish the same objectives."

"President-elect Obama has been very clear in the past two days that he is going to aggressively promote electronic health records, and he's a strong believer in electronic prescribing," Tullman said, adding that the commitment is more important than the amount of funding.

While the health-care sector has been considered countercyclical or recession-proof, the current situation is more than a normal recession, so Allscripts has been cautious in its outlook, Tullman said.