Jeff Rowe
At the iHT2 Summer Health IT Summit in Denver last week, hospital executives talked about what they must do to achieve meaningful use from EHRs. Some health organizations, such as Catholic Health Initiatives, are starting from scratch. You'd think being an early adopter would give a system a leg up, but going in fresh has its advantages.
Depending upon whom you believe, the numbers are all over the place in terms of how much defensive medicine costs the healthcare industry and the country.
The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) has added three certification programs for EHRs. This is good news. Adding more specialties, namely, behavior health, dermatology and long-term and post-acute care, will help drive EHR adoption across provider groups and spread the benefits of EHRs to a greater number of patients.
The "Party of No" continues its unrelenting assault on anything the current administration does, and its latest victim is the final meaningful use criteria. Really.
Suffice to say, when John Glaser speaks, the healthcare industry should listen. Even as Glaser moves from the healthcare provider and policy areas of the industry to the vendor side, he remains a respected authority on healthcare IT.
Many hospitals and physician offices are beginning to embark on the journey to implement and derive meaningful use out of EHRs. The Beacon communities will demonstrate how health IT can improve clinical outcomes, drive efficiencies and increase patient safety. Early adopters of EMRs and EHRs will also serve as role models in terms of where to find value and ROI. There has to be a business case for any IT investment, and finding multiple business cases for EHRs will only increase adoption.
Even hospitals and physician groups need to market their facilities and services, but when it involves gleaning marketing information from patient data in EHRs, well, it’s not so simple.
Health IT professionals say EHRs are their top priority, according to a survey by Embarcadero Technologies.
New York State may be in the middle of a budget crisis, not unlike most of the states in the union, but legislators there understand the importance of funding health IT.
Incoming reaction and comments to the final meaningful use criteria have so far been fairly positive. I don't know if the organizations that are calling for changes are resigned to the fact that the rule making for stage 1 is final and want their comments to be taken into consideration when the stage 2 requirements are being discussed.