Join us every Friday at Five for our weekly top 5 favorites in the world of HIT and HITECH. This week in anticipation of the final rules we contrast quotes from ONC Blumenthal and HIT pundits. Have a happy and safe 4th of July.
Blumenthal vs. the Pundits
The Pundits
1. Dr. David Bates
Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, February 2010
“I think this is going to be a challenge for most networks. When I put on my policy hat, that’s quite concerning. I’m hopeful that rules will be relaxed a bit, because I think it’s important for more people to be able to achieve [compliance].”
2. Dana Blankenhorn
ZDNet Healthcare, March 16, 2010
“There seems little doubt that the definitions, guidelines and timetables for “meaningful use” will be watered down. The question is how much.”
3. Neil Versel
FierceEMR, April 22, 2010
Responding to Consumer groups demanding MU bar to remain high…
“As a taxpayer, I don’t want my money squandered on technology implementation that doesn’t do much to improve the quality of care. As a healthcare consumer–like virtually everyone else–I’d like to think that IT will help me take a more active role in my own care. As someone who’s followed the health IT industry for a decade and federal regulation for nearly two decades, I’m not so sure the business and consumer groups will get their way, except perhaps on the privacy issue. The provider lobby is strong in Washington.”
4. The first and former ONC, Dr. David Brailer
May 2010
“I expect the final rules will be softer, more developmental and incremental”.
5. Anthony Guerra
Founder or healthsystemCIO.com, May 2010
“The only responsible path to take is to make sure the bar for meaningful use is ‘dramatically lowered’ until there is more empirical evidence that EHRs do more good than harm when deployed on a wide scale.”
Dr. David Blumenthal
1. Health IT Buss Blog, The Evidence for HIT, November 30, 2009
“As a scientist myself, I take the academic literature very seriously. I believe that policy should be based on the best available information, carefully analyzed and considered.”
2. 18th National HIPAA Summit in Washington DC, February 10-12, 2010
“History has shown that things that improve healthcare become part of what is used. I propose to you that in a few years doctors will all support EHRs. Using EHRs will become a core competency for physicians. And once we’ve established that, it will be considered an absolute requisite.”
3. HIMSS 10 Keynote Speech, March 3, 2010
“As I look back and look ahead at this Olympic time, I sometimes see us as either speed skating or downhill slalom. We have to move fast, but we can’t miss a turn.”
4. Healthcare Informatics, Interview with David Blumenthal, April 13, 2009
When asked about physicians failure to meet meaningful use and overall discouragement that results in rate of adoption declining.
“I take a longer-term view. My view is that electronic collection, storage, management and use of information is an inevitability in the 21st century, and that the federal government is trying to speed up the inevitable. This is a fairly calculated investment by the Congress not in adoption, but in a level of use that brings benefit. We shouldn’t spend the taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars for results that don’t meet the Congress’ standard, and that standard is meaningful use.”
5. Health IT Buzz, Adoption of Health IT, June 14, 2010
“Americans deserve better health care than they are currently receiving, and they need it delivered more efficiently. Every provider, every patient throughout our nation will benefit from the goals envisioned by the HITECH Act. Yes, this will be a challenge. While large hospital networks and smaller providers may be stretched to meet national health IT goals, it is not beyond their capacity for growth.”