Are we on track to be a huge disappointment to our children’s children – or What?
[By Darrell K. Pruitt DDS]
When our grandchildren get the bill for the Obama administration’s subsidies benefitting primarily the health information technology industry, I bet they’re going to be really, really pissed at us for allowing today’s lawmakers to blow their 28 billion dollars to please HIT advocates who mislead consumers as well as lawmakers about the benefits of EHRs.
The Doctors Speak
According to physicians who actually do the hard lifting in healthcare, the “meaningful use” requirements that they must prove in order to qualify for stimulus money will arguably increase both the cost and danger of healthcare – all for the benefit of stakeholders rather than principals. For one thing, “meaningful use” is meaningless if it fails to help physicians treat their patients. I think HIT stakeholders’ grandchildren should somehow be held accountable to my grandchildren.
Opposing Opinions
Just days apart this week, two HIT reporters, Rich Daly from ModernHealthcare.com and Joseph Goedert from HealthDataManagment.com described two opposing letters the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) recently received: One from doctors and one from patients (et al).
On Monday, here is how Daly’s article “AMA to ONC: EHR program doesn’t work for docs” began:
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110302/NEWS/303029950/1153
“Many physicians—specialists in particular—will not participate in the federal electronic health-record adoption incentive program because it requires them to include patient data that they do not otherwise collect, according to a Feb. 25 letter from 39 medical organizations letter to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology”
On Wednesday, Joseph Goedert, writing for HealthDataManagment.com began “Consumer Groups: Hold Strong on MU” with this:
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/meaningful-use-criteria-comments-consumers-42080-1.html
“A coalition of 25 consumer groups and unions is asking federal officials to hold firm on more stringent criteria for Stage 2 of electronic health records meaningful use, and expressing support for going further. For instance, because patients still trust their providers more than other information sources, holding providers accountable for actual usage of a patient Web portal ‘is entirely appropriate and we strongly urge ONC to resist pressure from the provider community to absolve them from responsibility for making these services available and useful to their patients,’ according to a comment letter to the Office of the National Coordinator”
- AARP
- Advocacy for Patients with Chronic Illness, Inc.
- AFL-CIO
- American Association on Health and Disability
- American Hospice Foundation
- Caring from a Distance
- Center for Democracy & Technology
- Childbirth Connection
- Consumers for Affordable Health Care
- Consumers Union
- Families USA
- Family Caregiver Alliance
- Healthwise
- Mothers Against Medical Error
- National Alliance for Caregiving
- National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship
- National Consumers League
- National Family Caregivers Association
- National Health Law Program
- National Partnership for Women & Families
- National Women’s Health Network
- OWL – The Voice of Midlife and Older Women
- SEIU
- The Children’s Partnership
Like the “Record Demographics” MU mandate, this is all for the “common good” I suppose. Consumer Advocasy groups wouldn’t mislead patients, would they?
I doubt many Americans represented by these 25 organizations ever imagined a new federal requirement that doctors record each patient’s demographics. (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Electronic Health Record Incentive Program; Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 8 / Wednesday, January 13, 2010 / page 1861; RIN 0938-AP78).
This means that the 25 stakeholder groups are doing their best to help American taxpayers hold physicians accountable to record and share their patients’ demographic information with the US government – private information about me and my family members that I personally don’t trust the government to be given – even if I’m in vulnerable need of health care.
Daly’s Article
According to Daly’s article, the demands of MU are distractions for increasingly busy doctors and staff whose focus, I believe, should include eye-contact with patients with specific health problems rather than irrelevant data needs of third parties, including consumer advocacy groups.
On the other hand, if consumer advocacy groups have successfully defined for the federal government what clueless patients allegedly need, who will the mandate really benefit? 25 consumer advocacy groups don’t equal one consumer, so their letter isn’t grass roots at all. It’s deception wearing lipstick. Gullible and vulnerable patients are again being misrepresented by HIT stakeholders for a cut of our grandchildren’s 28 billion.
Assessment
Finally, if MU requirements are an arguably expensive and dangerous distraction for physicians, how can the law possibly be any less absurd for dentists? I’ll look at meaningful use as well at the ADA’s apparently flagging commitment to EHRs next. The ADA is abandoning state informatics departments – leaving them exposed to ADA members’ questions they are unable to answer. It looks to me that intra-ADA relationships are deteriorating quickly, but nevertheless, traditional stoicism still hasn’t been broken. “Image is everything” – ADA/IDM slogan.
Dentists
Here’s a teaser, dentists: Chances are, your state ADA organization hasn’t yet shared with you how the MU requirement of CPOE (Computerized physician order entry – page 1858) will change your practice communications. If you are a HIPAA-covered entity with an NPI number and you don’t email instructions to your denture lab rather than include a hand-written note with the relevant patient’s plaster models, you won’t qualify for stimulus money. What can possibly go wrong with that meaningful idea?
Conclusion
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Filed under: Health Law & Policy, Information Technology, Op-Editorials, Practice Management, Pruitt's Platform | Tagged: ACA, ARRA, CPOE, EHRs, EMRs, HIT, HITECH, Joseph Goedert, meaningful use, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, ONC, Rich Daly | 18 Comments »
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