HITECH Health IT Legislation: Opportunities for the DMAA Community

Dr. Don Storey and I spoke at the at The Forum 09 conference in San Diego earlier this week. The DMAA publication “The Continuum” had an excellent writeup of our enthusiastically received presentation. 

Here’s a copy of our PowerPoint slides…

and here’s DMAA’s writeup:

Helping physicians and hospitals meet the “meaningful use” criteria for federal support for health information technology under recently passed legislation represents a keen opportunity for the population health management industry, presenters at this session said yesterday.

Vince Kuraitis, JD, MBA, of Better Health Technologies, LLC, and Don Storey, MD, of RMD Networks, presented a look at the evolution of HIT and the electronic medical records systems from a strongly proprietary model with little interoperability to new model of integrated, modular applications from various vendors sharing common languages and platforms.

The shift has moved the EMR toward more open, interoperable applications and greater flexibility for physician practices and other end users to tailor the systems to their specific needs, the presenters said. “In a fee for- service world, you can’t slow doctors down,” Dr. Storey said, noting the importance of flexible systems that complement the physician’s workflow.

Spurring further development and opportunities for DMAA members, Kuraitis and Dr. Storey said, will be implementation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, part of the this year’s economic stimulus law. This legislation included $19 billion for health information technology.

A key provision of the law is the requirement that physicians, hospitals and other providers use certified HIT systems and use the systems in a “meaningful” way, criteria for which are now working their way through the regulatory process. Proposed regulations allow for a variety of certification bodies and focus on meaningful use, rather than functionality alone, which is “really good news for the people in this room,” Kuraitis said, explaining that the law will create new opportunities for population health providers to demonstrate value through their experience applying HIT to care coordination and other services.

The law, through support for grants to states for greater HIT use in Medicaid, opens another door for population health management, Kuraitis said. “There will be a lot of money flowing through state and regional organizations and those are areas where you can think about working with doctors and hospitals,” he said.

Kuraitis cautioned that the meaningful use requirement will demand greater evidence of value in HIT systems. “It is not enough to put the technology on your computer, but you have to show you’re using it to improve patient care,” he said. “The question for you who are buyers: What is it my vendor is doing to contribute to meaningful use? And, if you’re a vendor, you need to ask yourself the same question.”