With the HITECH provisions of the ARRA, federal policymakers have resorted to a classic “carrots and sticks” approach to moving the healthcare sector toward greater use of HIT.
But as they look for other ways of accomplishing the same thing, they may want to take a look at some recent developments in Ohio.
While it isn’t focused specifically on pushing providers toward EHRs, the Ohio General Assembly’s recent decision to “establish 44 existing primary care practices as training centers for patient-centered medical homes” might be seen as another, more indirect yet more forward thinking way of encouraging the healthcare sector to get on the bandwagon.
As this report points out, “medical homes rely on health information technology, including electronic health records, health information exchanges, decision support tools and e-prescribing, to enable a medical team led by a primary care physician to coordinate aspects of a patient’s preventive, chronic and acute care.”
In other words, while HITECH might be seen as focusing primarily on the way healthcare is delivered in the present, Ohio’s initiative has the added benefit of promoting one way that healthcare will be delivered in the future.
And HIT is arguably the key to the way medical homes will work. Consequently, doctors who want to be a part of that future – and there appears to be solid evidence that medical homes can both save money and improve care – will have no choice but to figure out how to incorporate the full suite of IT tools into their practices.
It may be that the feds are better off staying out of initiatives like Ohio’s. After all, as we’ve noted before, allowing the states to experiment on their own is a time-honored way of allowing policies to be tested and crafted in smaller, more controllable environments.
Still, the move toward medical homes is picking up speed, and HIT is an indispensable part of that future. Given that fact, as they reach out to reluctant providers, federal policymakers should point to the medical home movement as one way providers will definitely be able to put their HIT investments to good use.
Jeff Rowe blogs daily at Priming the Pump.
