e-CareManagement blog

Chronic Disease Management • Technology • Strategy • Issues and Trends

A Compendium of Perspectives on the HITECH Certification NPRM

Just the Facts 
Certification Programs NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking)
Health IT, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services; March 2, 2010
Certification NPRM
Facts-At-A-Glance
FAQ
 
Bookmarked version of Certification NPRM (much easier to navigate)
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services; March 2, 2010
Via OCCAM Practice Management blog, March 3, 2010
 
Commentary and Analysis
 
Proposed EHR Certification Rule Changes Game
HDM Breaking [...]

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John Halamka’s Stunning 180: “Dogs and Cats Should Live in Harmony”

The King of the Cats has just acknowledged that indeed cats and dogs should co-exist peacefully.
Dr. John Halamka — Vice Chair of the HIT Standards Committee of the ONC and one of the most vocal and influential figures in health IT — writes a blog post this morning entitled “The Genius of AND”. Halamka reasonably summarizes the [...]

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CCHIT’s Latest Gambit

by Glen Laffel MD, PhD
Many of us have enjoyed a few good minutes of fun having our fortunes told by soothsayers who claim they can predict our future based on patterns of tea leaves in a cup or the playing cards we’ve pulled from a deck.

We pay a few dollars for the entertainment and if [...]

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HIT Policy Committee Recommends “Minimum” Certification of EHRs

At last Friday’s meeting, the HIT Policy Committee adopted the recommendations of the Certification and Adoption Workgroup.
Between the initial recommendations in July and the adopted recommendations in August, one critical word was added to the definition of “certification”.  That one word is “minimum” — and this one word expresses the correct approach and philosophy for the government’s role in [...]

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Time for EHRs to Become Plug-and-Play

by David C. Kibbe MD, MBA
The remarkable report, “Initial Lessons From the First National Demonstration Project on Practice Transformation to a Patient-Centered Medical Home,” published in the May/June issue of Annals of Family Medicine, the Nutting Report, makes this point about the state of primary care IT offerings:
Technology needed in a PCMH is not “plug [...]

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Markle v. HIMSS: Differing Views of “Meaningful Use” and “Certification”

 
 
 
 
 
 
The forthcoming definition of the “meaningful use” of health information technology will set the direction of the Obama administration’s strategy for health IT adoption, said David Blumenthal, the new national coordinator for health IT. Government HealthIT, April 28, 2009
…but not everyone sees eye-to-eye on the definitions of “meaningful use” and “certification”.  [See the first post in this series [...]

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Is the Health Data Liquidity Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

What a difference in attitude! Compare two press announcements from April 5:
1) CCHIT:  Interoperability Isn’t Doable With Today’s Technology .
Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), Interoperability: Supplying the Building Blocks for a Patient-centered EHR , April 5, 2009
This report…(is)  also an attempt to inject a dose of reality into the discussion of interoperability [...]

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Feline Foot-Dragging: Three Non-Innovative Aspects of HITECH

What do cats (incumbent EHR vendors and their supporters) have to smile about over HITECH?
A lot.
…and it’s not very complicated.  HITECH directs $17 B to the cat community, and leaves scraps for the dogs.
(As a refresher, the cat POV is that HITECH stimulus funds should simply pay directly for electronic health record (EHR) technology [...]

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Why Clinical Groupware May Be the Next Big Thing in Health IT

by David C. Kibbe MD, MBA
What would you call health care software that:

Is Web-based and networkable, therefore highly scalable and inexpensive to purchase and use;
Provides a ‘unified view’ of a patient from multiple sources of data and information;
Is designed to be used interactively – by providers and patients alike – to coordinate care and create [...]

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