Health IT Media Follows Stage 3 Meaningful Use

Stage 3 Meaningful Use CommentsMore Comment Letters on Stage 3 Meaningful Use

A good number of health IT news media outlets and bloggers have been reporting on the comment letters sent Monday to ONC’s Farzad Mostashari from leading healthcare organizations. The letters make each organization’s case on what Stage 3 meaningful use should (and shouldn’t) include. Each letter is a response to the Health IT Policy Committee (HITPC) request for comments on Stage 3 Meaningful Use requirements published in the Federal Register on November 26, 2012. The deadline for submitting comments was Monday.

No surprise following the release of comments by AMACHIMEHIMSS, and AHA we would also see comments from other organizations submitted on that day. These organizations include the American College of Physicians (ACP), eHealth Initiative, and the Society for Participatory Medicine.

We know this is a lot of bedside reading, we’re still digesting the volume of comments and issues laid out in these letters. Thankfully, some of our fellow health IT brethren have provided us with recaps and commentary.

Timed to all of this is an article published on Forbes.com today, Government Should Slow Down Race To Implement Electronic Health Records. The article suggests vendors are also looking for the EHR adoption train to slow down a little.

In an unusual move, vendors of electronic health records (EHRs) are asking the government to delay implementation of their products, and focus instead on making sure requirements already set in motion on EHR use are effective. “The pace is too damn high,” says John Glaser, chief executive officer of Health Services at Siemens Healthcare, a major vendor. “People are just cramming this stuff in.”

All the recent surveys and studies we’ve looked at say EHR adoption is accelerating, with as much as 80% of family physicians adopting EHR technology by year end. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out in the coming months.