Hi Martin:
The problem with HITECH and CCHIT is that there is a "dark side" which involves the powerful lobbying of the "enterprise" EHR vendors who are trying to capture market share at the expense of their smaller competitors. This will lead to higher prices, eventual forced (not simply HITECH cooerced) "significant use" laws, and the reigning in of physicians that see universal health care patients to force them to not only see patients but to work as secretaries with mountains of HIT electronic "paperwork" in order to survive. Forget Medicare (it'll cease to exist after 2017), forget cash patients (in Canada they made seeing cash patients illegal- it'll happen here too), forget HMO/PPO insured patients (these plans will not be able to exist against a massive government run plan).
It's nice that AC is trying to do CCHIT, but I fear it may be too little too late. Right now the EMRs that will reign are already being defined by who surrounds the president:
1) Allscripts (Glen Tullman)
2) Cerner (Nancy-Ann DeParle)
3) GE (David Blumenthal M.D. )
4) Partners HealthCare System (John Glaser)
5) eCW (Thomas Frieden, M.D.)
(read my PPT presentation
here or
here )
I'm getting excellent backing of my thoughts by the press, as seen in these 2 recent Washington Post articles this week that are also looking into the underlying forces that have propelled HITECH to where it is now:
-- "
The Machinery Behind Health-Care Reform "
-- "
Group Seeks Sway Over E-Records System "
What- nobody liked my artistic aspirations as a future poet?
Al
