Hey what about free speech and letting the reader do the editorial weeding out? Was that not the beauty and the downside of the web verses large corporate mass media. It kind of gave back the printing press to the masses. Are we now going to allow those of corporate interest to again be the editorial filter for all of us???
I have a suggestion because I'm very concerned that those inside an industry, even just technicians at large hospitals, TV stations and so on do have some amount of inherent bias to maintain and grow certain types of technology even if they try to have a neutral stance. Having CCHIT and ERMupdate board membered and moderatored by those who are industry insiders can "appear" to be biased even when not, althought I do feel that many are while a few are not; this is very frightening and wrong. Perhaps if EMRupdate and CCHIT had moderators and board members who were from mostly small and medium sized practices, both those that have adopted some amount of tech and those that have not (why not include the nay sayers, perhaps we could all learn where the road blocks really are?) we could get a more fair and balanced perspective. Even us Non-CCHIT but EMR adopters are some what biased already towards the technology, right? We do agree with the basics, just have a different spin on how to get there and why. We have already cut off half the conversation by not including those that are totally against EMR's and the like.
This is how the conservatives cut off half the conversation in the 80's and 90's by redefining the extreme left as "Liberal". The proper original edfinition of a liberal really was for a waffeling, sit on the fence, middle of the road, person who you couldn't easily tell if they were right or left of center. They were for the most part the center. To be as extremely left of center to counter the exterme right side that is, big corporate, free market, hawkish, military industrial complex, one would need to include the Yippies, Anarcists, Full Socialists and Communists and the like... That puts the Liberial right back where he belongs, sitting on that fence sort of playing both sides. Get it??? But by redefining the center as the extreme left side, that entire side of the argument no longer has to be dealt with or acknologed, no less incorporated into the conversation. It's simply GONE!!!
For the most part those of us who are discussing EMR's have kind of done the same thing. I like EMR's in my office, not connected to the large world wide web, with citizens' and their health records in anyone's, no less government's centralized servers. Have none of you read your required Orwell back in college and HS??? Did none of you get it??? But even I at this extreme conservative side of EMR's am still an EMR'er and I am smart enough to understand that there are others who don't even want to go there and perhaps it is my conservative perspective that has many of them scared off and worried, and wanting to aviod the entire thing??? Did that ever cross your minds.
So how about have NO corporate board members or moderators, even if they are good people of decent character, because they are by their very nature, on the extreme side of one of the sides of this conversation??? Those who are the CEO of tech intergration at a major teaching hospital, are by their very nature very biased. So is the corporate COO, CFO, CEO and what have you of an EMR vendor, even if they are great people who studied a whole lot of philosophy back in undergraduate school. What we need is to have people who come to this as average, small practice docs and practice managers (like myself) who are the ones that have to live and work with the final choices of this ivory tower committees. Have the committee hire folks to help them understand the tech side, but have regular folks make the choices. It is their offices that are going to get banged by this CCHIT.
In engineering there is a great basic idea to live by when designing something and CCHIT has totally lost sight of this which is why I think most of us here are AC users. "Remember your end user." If a piece of equipment or software, a car, a VCR, and phone, whatever, is properly designed then the intended end user should be able to take the darn thing out of the box, run if through at least half if not 3/4's of it's paces without ever opening up the user manual. The steering wheel is the steering wheel, the gas is the gas, the brake is the brake; get it???
This is the reason for AC's continued success and frankly I think that many of the larger CCHIT like vendors are really scared of this little upstart that could. And even here at AC I and a few others have to try and remind AC central not to forget this most important and basic of principles. That one basic concept should be handed down on stone tablets to what ever commitee be it CCHIT or hopefully something else that replaces it, to be tatooed on eveyone's forehead, never to be forgotten uder penalty of death. This is where EMR's and any other technology has to go if it will ever be successfully adopted.
"Hi, I'm a PC", "and I'm a MAC". MAC baby, MAC... If you can not accept or understand this most important concept then it is true, you are too much to one biased side, too involved. This is perfectly understandable and it is very human. Most software writers have this myopic perspective. Have you noticed how many of the larger vendors keep trying to use the AC marketing idea of "designed by a regular doctor just like you". They do understand that their products are not intuitive or they have not desinged then for the average, not computer science major, front end receptionist, MA, Nurse, Practice Manager and the like. Even half the docs don't want to get this detailed. They need a good old Auto trannied, MPFI, basic EMR to get them from point A to point B. Something they can just put their key in and it turns over every morning and drives... Get it? Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
So let's give the design and creation of these most important tools back to the folks who have to live with the consquences and the costs. And there should be no unfunded mandates here. Either put up or shut up, plain and simple. Are you really game to do this the proper and fair way????
Good Night and Good Luck,
Paul
