Contributing Member of the Healthcare Councils

All News Analyses by this Author

Money and Meaningful Use

June 22, 2009

Analysis of:First Look at 'Meaningful Use' | www.healthdatamanagement.com

1.  Achievement of meaningful use is indicative of the federal government's attempt to show that the health IT spending outlined in the HITECH provisions of the ARRA are focused on an achievement of outcomes - at least process outcomes - as opposed to simply broader adoption of EHR systems 2.  Meaningful use must be achieved by providers to secure the incentive payments outlined in HITECH. 3.  Providers will be asked to achieve progressively higher levels of functionality and outputs between 2011 and 2015. 4.  The unprecendented capital infusion stands to benefit the well-entrenced, financially-secure and politically savvy HIT vendors and other industry players. 

Without Building the Health IT Superhighway Everything is a Pipedream

May 25, 2009

Analysis of:Achieving Health Care Reform--How Physicians Can Help | content.nejm.org

Health care is complex, and the goals of improved quality and safety and a better, more valuable customer experience will be difficult to achieve even in the best of circumstances.  However, the current health information technology infrastructure in the U.S. makes it practically impossible to achieve the three aims the authors discussed, especially in their "virtually integrated" organization model that necessarily needs to rely on information technology to bridge disparate legacy information and diagnostic technologies.  Movement to true interoperability, in which the various actors in the health care arena can access necessary information when needed, is required to allow health care to achieve the three aims.

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