Jeff Rowe

For the next few months, federal healthcare policymakers will have their hands full as they sort through the range of responses to the recently proposed standards for the "meaningful use" of healthcare IT.

David Brailer, MD, former federal health IT czar and founder and chairman of Health Evolution Partners, pointed out that physician use of true clinical decision support remains a significant challenge for the industry. I spoke with Greg Dorn, MD, COO of Zynx Health Care, about CDS, and thought I'd share his thoughts and hopefully start a dialogue about what kinds of CDS we want physicians to adopt and how we can get there.

ARRA has been good to Allscripts, as evidenced by the results of its second quarter financials. The company expects to see even better numbers in the coming quarters as adoption and acceleration of health IT grows. Analysts agree that the incentives are driving adoption.

I spoke with David J. Brailer, MD, former federal healthcare IT czar for the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), last Friday about ARRA, meaningful use criteria and the challenges the industry faces in 2010 and beyond. Read the article in Healthcare IT News.

Amid the rash of studies the last few months about the inability of EHRs to deliver the goods comes a welcomed report by KLAS. Eighty-five percent of healthcare providers who responded to KLAS' survey believe their ambulatory EMRs will help them meet for the 2011 deadlines per the meaningful use criteria that were proposed in July.

The Georgia Office of Health Information Technology and Transparency announced that in January it would begin an initiative to build an electronic health information exchange for the 10,000 physicians who treat Medicaid patients in the state.