Conferences

What will come from this period of HITECH ambiguity?

Of the interesting topics discussed during Thursday night’s Transforming Healthcare Summit 2009, I found a few simple words to be the most intriguing – “certified” and “meaningful use”. These are of course the terms used in the recently signed Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, to determine if a provider’s EMR implementation enables them to collect their share of the $19.2 Billion stimulus.

A quick Google search shows the immense interest and opinions this specific subject has invoked since the Act was published in February.  First around the topic of certification and what deems a “certified” EMR.  Although CCHIT is the nationally recognized certifying body for EMR implementations, there seems to still be a question within the HITECH act as to what will deem a certified EMR. Of course this provides an opportunity for anyone and everyone to voice their concerns with the CCHIT and its current certification requirements. The major arguments I’ve read point to the certification’s discount of system usability and the lack of any tie to outcome measurements.

Secondly there’s the term”meaningful use” which is also yet to be defined to a majority’s satisfaction.  The world is not short on opinions and businesses are doing what they can to capitalize on the current ambiguity.  In fact a google search of “HITCH Act, meaningful use” will often provide sponsored links to no less than three companies, one consistently by Watertown-based, athenahealth, offering “…The Facts About The HITECH Act What It Means For Your Practice”.  If you follow the link, athenahealth basically explains how providers can get their piece of the pie, and how athenahealth’s suite of software products, can help.  Athena also subtly announces that they will alter their application’s capabilities in places where it doesn’t currently meet the requirements laid out by the HITECH Act. “..we are prepared to update athenaClinicals with new measures, and assist physicians in program enrollment, submission and performance optimization.”  Hmm, think Jonathan Bush sees $$?  But his developers are currently trying to hit a moving target of requirements.

The unfortunate reality is that it’ll take too long to develop a new certification criteria, certify new software packages and implement them by 2011 – the deadline indicated by the plan’s Meaningful use Timeline. So, are there incremental changes we can make, that add significant value to the certification criteria, but do not force us to start from scratch?

Contribute to the debate:  A recent emrandhipaa.com poll asks whether the current CCHIT certification should be the one used by the HITECH act? I’d argue a third option should be included – “Update CCHIT Certification with latest metrics in usability (proficiency and process cycle time reduction) and measured outcomes (patient health, subscription accuracy, billing accuracy).”

What do you think?

In reality, the most value that the HITECH Act is providing the health care industry at the moment is the buzz it’s creating. Perhaps due my recent baptism into the world of HIT blogging or the facts-of-life living in the Northeast, but it feels as though there’s more thought, opinion and open discussion occurring around these topics today than ever before. My hope is that the buzz is infectious and pushes decision-makers to become more educated on the value of utilizing technology to bring value to the industry and not just to dip into the Administration’s cookie jar (for what will end up being significantly less % of overall revenues than you may initially think). I also hope that these questions, left open by the HITECH Act, don’t discourage progress; discourage providers from implementing an EMR or other system which they will find out will not meet all the criteria laid out by HITECH in order to collect on the Act’s incentives.

Of course the best thing that could happen during this next 9 months is the general acceptance that information availability is *the* enabler for patient-centric health care to flourish and the first provider system to master and coexist in an environment driven by information exchange and availability will be the winner with patients and board members alike.

© 2009 medullan | blog.