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“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” These may be words that strike fear in the hearts and minds of many, but in the case of the Meaningful Use final rule … they may ring true.
After spending my last 24 hours with the new NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rule Making), it’s clear that ONC and their teams did a great job in striking a balance between doing too much and too little – a difficult task to say the least. Read the rest of this entry »
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As we anxiously await the final rule for meaningful use, it is a good time to reflect on a concept that the interim rule introduced – a simple, modular EHR intended for clinical patient management and care collaboration. The availability of these lower-cost, modular EHRs combined with the availability of complete, traditional EHRs integrated for health information exchange will hopefully create an EHR market that appeals to the majority of providers.
It’s obvious how the emerging market of lower-cost, certified EHRs and pending reimbursements lowers the cost barrier to adoption. But gaining value and meaningful use of an EHR requires more than the purchase of the product(s). It requires that the organization change its processes and habits to effectively use the system.
It is also obvious that humans don’t change easily. Read the rest of this entry »
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Ever since ONC unveiled its vision for NHIN Direct, I’ve gotten many questions that indicate there’s a lot of confusion out there about what the NHIN initiative is and what it isn’t.
In several presentations given by members of the ONC, I’ve heard very clearly that the Federal government is not in the long-term business of developing HIE software. Rather, their goal with NHIN (and NHIN Direct) is to develop concepts, specifications, standards and frameworks that the private sector must pick up, bring to market, maintain and evolve for years to come. NHIN (or NHIN Direct) is not defined as a long-term, sustainable software package that states or other organizations can pick up and use to replace a commercially-available or home-grown HIE package. Their intent is for the industry to adopt the specifications and adhere to the governance model to drive a level of consistency across implementations.
So, what is NHIN Direct? Read the rest of this entry »
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I believe that meaningful use (MU) and the continued advances in technology will usher in a wave of disruptive innovations that will ultimately have a significant impact on healthcare costs and quality. MU sets the stage by expanding the definition of an EHR to include modular applications designed to create, maintain, and exchange a limited, standardized data set. Advances in technology like the concepts I’ve been sharing in recent posts, are beginning to interconnect providers in communities across the US. The convergence of these activities is leading to a new model that can be called Health 4.0.
Why Health 4.0? Read the rest of this entry »
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There has been a lot of discussion about the “demise” of CalRHIO. Perhaps it would be helpful to give an insider’s view of what transpired. I want to be both very clear and very accurate when I say that CalRHIO did not fail, but simply decided to support and transition into the newly formed state governance entity. To better explain why this happened, I think it is important to provide a historical context. Read the rest of this entry »
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Medicity has received questions about the HIE situation in California and the breakup of CalRHIO. The following blog post appeared on HIStalk earlier this morning and contains a message from former CalRHIO CEO Molly Coye that addresses the situation: Read the rest of this entry »
