The newly appointed Electronic Health Records (EHR) Standards Committee
recently held their first meeting, as directed by the American
Reinvestment and
Recovery Act, better known as the "stimulus package." Their mandate is
to devise a set of standards for
health information technology (HIT) and specifically determine
'meaningful use' as well as other measures of successful EHR
implementation that make physicians eligible for
governmental reimbursement.
The Committee's co-chairs are John Halamka, Chief Information Officer of the Beth Israel Deaconness Hospital in
Boston and Jonathan Perlin, Chief Medical Officer and President of Clinical Services for
HCA, Nashville . David Bluementhal, the newly appointed National Coordinator of the
Office of Health Information Technology, will head the HIT Policy
Committee that develops recommendations related to health information
technology systems policy and thus, EHR adoption.
The goal for the
Blumenthal group is to channel policy recommendations to the
Perlin-Halamka group. The latter will then put forth standards that
are benchmarks for implementation success. The bulk of this procedural
work will occur over the next 60-90 days,
according to committee chairs. Final standards are due by year's end.
The
results of the committee work are highly anticipated by
vendors, physicians, and administrators alike. Over the past five
months, an online dialogue surfaced regarding what the standards would
and should be, how they would be enforced and whether or not existing
certification and guidance groups in their current form were sufficient
in leading the standards development with respect to EHR adoption.
Facing a very short time frame, the leaders emphasize that they
will work from pre-existing efforts to establish standards in the
industry, namely, the Healthcare Information Technology Standards
Panel, led by Halamka.
As all eyes are focused on the standards
group,
most assume and Halamka confirms that the areas of interest
surrounding standards for meaningful use will include e-prescribing,
lab reporting, quality and clinical care summaries. Yet David Blumenthal emphasizes that
the policy and standards development is a work in progress that will evolve over time.
Therefore, some flexibility is demanded as we drag our healthcare system
into the digital age. Hopefully, the policy and standards set forth by
the Obama Administration will give the health system prudent guidance
with room to maneuver.
This next step is a
giant leap for all of us (as taxpayers and patients), and we are all
holding our breath.
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