I'm not too sure that Jon will gain much from joining CCHIT. AC may well lose as he devotes more time and energy to an otherwise useless endeavor, ignoring the development and support of the basic EMR product feature base. It will not only cost him the $30000.00 fee but the multi-thousand dollar investment in retooling his software. Other issues:

-- Most of his userbase are folks that want an easy-to-use EMR that is inexpensive.
-- The CCHIT market is dominated by a few dozen software vendors, most of whom are going the OTHER way- i.e. trying to put out "lite" versions of their products.
-- The annual CCHIT certification rate continues to decline; joining CCHIT now would be like booking a cruise on the Titanic while it's sinking.
-- The CMS/Medicare demonstration projects to date have been failures with little to no money going to the participants.
-- The CCHIT market has stagnated since 2005 as per the biennial CDC report put out last October (2007), while the rest of the EMR market continues to grow. ( http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad393.pdf )
-- Nobody knows how President-elect Obama will side with certification in general, especially if providers begin to stop accepting Medicare patients because of HIT.

I would personally hate to see AC go CCHIT. It would be an endorsement which will give CCHIT a political boost like no other.

Just my thoughts...

Al

Last edited by alborg; 11/06/2008 7:47 AM.