List of Healthcare IT Trade Associations

Posted on May 6, 2022 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

Advancing Medical Practice Success with Strategic Relationships

By Staff ReportersHDS

To be efficient in healthcare delivery today, doctors must partner and understand the resources and affiliations that are available to them. Here is a brief list of several healthcare trade associations and leading industry vendors submitted for your review.

AHIMA
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is the premier association of health information management professionals. AHIMA’s 51,000 members are dedicated to the effective management of personal health information needed to deliver quality healthcare to the public. Founded in 1928 to improve the quality of medical records, AHIMA is committed to advancing the health information management profession in an increasingly electronic and global environment through leadership in advocacy, education, certification, and lifelong learning.

EHRA
HIMSS EHRA is a trade association of Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors that addresses national efforts to create interoperable EHRs in hospital and ambulatory care settings. HIMSS EHRA operates on the premise that the rapid, widespread adoption of EHRs will help improve the quality of patient care and the productivity of the healthcare system. The primary mission of the association is to provide a forum for the EHR vendor community relative to standards development, the EHR certification process, interoperability, performance and quality measures, and other EHR issues that may become the subject of increasing government, insurance and physician association initiatives and requests.

HIMSS
HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) is the healthcare industry’s membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology and management systems for the betterment of human health. Founded in 1961 with offices in Chicago, Washington D.C., and other locations across the country, HIMSS represents approximately 17,000 individual members and some 275 member corporations that employ more than 1 million people. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare public policy and industry practices through its advocacy, educational and professional development initiatives designed to promote information and management systems’ contributions to ensuring quality patient care.

HITSP
The Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel serves as a cooperative partnership between the public and private sectors for achieving a widely accepted and useful set of standards specifically to enable and support widespread interoperability among healthcare software applications, as they will interact in a local, regional, and national health information network for the United States. Comprised of a wide range of stakeholders, the Panel will assist in the development of the U.S. Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) by addressing issues such as privacy and security within a shared healthcare information system. The Panel is sponsored by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in cooperation with strategic partners such as the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI), and Booz Allen Hamilton. Funding for the Panel is being provided via the ONCHIT contract award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

HL7
Health Level Seven is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited Standards Developing Organization (SDO) operating in the healthcare clinical and administrative data arena. It is a not-for-profit volunteer organization made up of providers, vendors, payers, consultants, government groups, and others who develop clinical and administrative data standards for healthcare. Health Level Seven develops specifications; the most widely used being a messaging standard that enables disparate healthcare applications to exchange keys sets of clinical and administrative data.

MSHUG
Microsoft Healthcare Users Group (MS-HUG) unified with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) as part of the HIMSS Users Group Alliance Program in October 2003. The unification strengthens the commitment of HIMSS and MS-HUG to better serve their members and the industry through a shared strategic vision to provide leadership and healthcare information technology solutions that improve the delivery of patient care.

WEDI
The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange [WEDI’s] goal is to improve the quality of healthcare through effective and efficient information exchange and management. They aim to provide leadership and guidance to the healthcare industry on how to use and leverage the industry’s collective knowledge, expertise, and information resources to improve the quality, affordability, and availability of healthcare.

Assessment

As the health information technology industry evolves, we will continue to contribute our expertise to foster ideas that shape the future of healthcare by offering more examples similar to the above.

Conclusion

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Meet Don Rucker MD – The New NCHIT for the US-HHS

Posted on July 12, 2017 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

[By staff reporters]

We are pleased to announce that Don Rucker has been named the new National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Dr. Rucker, a physician leader with national clinical informatics success, has a strong scientific, computational and practical background in medical computing and decision sciences, he was a co-developer of the first Microsoft Windows based electronic medical record in the world.

Additionally, Dr. Rucker was a designer of the computerized physician order entry [CPOE] module that won the 2003 HIMSS Nicholas Davies Award as the best hospital computer system in the US.

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Got a Beef With Your EHR?

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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So – Go Tell the Feds; Already!

[Staff reporters]

Are you a doctor or medical provider unhappy with your electronic health records system, or unable to share health data because of the actions of other organizations?

Or, are you a healthcare consumer who can’t access your EHRs? The feds want to hear from you.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has a new online complaint website, healthit.gov/healthitcomplaints. It is the first formal complaint process that ONC has had throughout the journey to EHR meaningful use.

***

Source: Joseph Goedert, Health Data Management [9/18/15]

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Confusion About “Meaningful Use” Reigns

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Are Doctors Embracing or Ignoring ARRA?

By D. Kellus Pruitt DDS

pruittAre physicians embracing ARRA Meaningful Use cash incentives or ignoring them? That depends on whom one asks.

Doctors versus the Feds

National progress towards Meaningful Use of expensive EHRs depends on whether one talks to federal employees whose jobs depend on the stimulus mandate, or doctors who purchase EHRs to improve care rather than to use them … Meaningfully.

The Feds

Today, Joseph Conn, writing for ModernHealthcare, posted a rosy outlook for MU adoption according to researchers working for HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). They base their optimism for job security on a recent National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) survey:

“A growing number of office-based physicians are using more-robust EHRs that have higher-level functions needed to help the doctors qualify for federal EHR incentive payments [for Meaningful Use] and assist them in providing better, safer care for patients, the researchers reported.” (See “Researchers: More doctors using more-sophisticated EHRs”).

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20121212/NEWS/312129956/researchers-more-doctors-using-more-sophisticated-ehrsJust

eMR and HIT Security

The Doctors

However, yesterday, in an InformationWeek article by Ken Terry titled, “Meaningful Use Doesn’t Drive Doctors’ EHR Selection,” doctors suggested a more depressing future for MU sophistication based on the same NCHS survey:

“Jason Mitchell, MD, assistant director of the Center for Health IT at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), told InformationWeek Healthcare that he found [the lagging adoption of MU-capable EHRs] puzzling. While there’s no doubt that Meaningful Use has driven much of the increase in EHR use, he said, it seems strange that so many physicians would buy and implement EHRs that could not be used to show Meaningful Use.”

http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/electronic-medical-records/meaningful-use-doesnt-drive-doctors-ehr/240144093

Assessment

Whom should doctors believe – HHS employees who give away billions of stimulus dollars for Meaningful Use, or family physicians who have determined that the subsidy isn’t worth the cost and effort?

Conclusion

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Important Notice from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology‏

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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On behalf of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT

By JJ Minder joseph.minder@ketchum.com

Hello ME-P,

As I’m sure you’re aware, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) launched its brand new website HealthIT.gov last August. The website is designed to be the leading national resource on health information technology (health IT).

Link Update Notice

We see that the Medical Executive Post website currently links to ONC’s old policy site HealthIT.hhs.gov from the post titled: “Asking Uncle Sam…Why Health IT.”

Content currently on the HealthIT.hhs.gov site will be removed and merged to the new site by November 1st, 2012. We wanted to give you prior notice so you will be able to replace this link with a link to our new site HealthIT.gov

Assessment

We really appreciate you changing the link address to HealthIT.gov.

Please feel free to contact me at joseph.minder@ketchum.com if you have any questions or comments.

Best,

JJ Minder [Ketchum PR]

Contractor to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)

(202) 835-9461

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More on the Meaningful Use of eMRs

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Final Meaningful Use Rules Released by HHS on July 13, 2010.

[By Shahid N. Shah MS]

Link: http://shahid.shah.org

For ambulatory care practices and physicians there are about 25 objectives and measures that must be met to become a “meaningful user”. Keep in mind that meaningful use is not tied to a certified EHR alone; in fact, unless you use the EHR properly and in all the ways the government wants you to, you will not be a “meaningful user”. Don’t be fooled by EHR vendors guaranteeing that they will make you a “meaningful user” – no vendor’s software, no matter how nice, can get your staff to use the software in the way the government wants. You, as the CIO of your practice, are the only one that can guarantee that. In fact, you don’t even need an EHR from a vendor to meet the requirements – you can even roll your own, use open source, or find any other means. But, in general, as long as you can attest and send data to the government that they require you can do it in any way that you want. Be aware that some unscrupulous vendors are scaring practices and making promises that they cannot keep.

Final MU Rules

The final Meaningful Use (MU) Rule was published by HHS on July 13, 2010. It defines 24 objectives for and measures eligible hospitals that could be met to become a meaningful user and qualify for incentive funding. There is a “core set” that must be met by all institutions and a “menu set” of from which organizations must implement at least 5 objectives.

Core Set Objectives

These are the “core set” of 14 objectives that must be met by all institutions and a “menu set” of 10 from which organizations must implement at least 5 objectives (at least 1 public health objective must be chosen from that set).

  1. Use Computer Provider Order Entry (CPOE).
  2. Implement drug-drug, drug-allergy, and drug-formulary checks.
  3. Record demographics.
  4. Implement one clinical decision support rule.
  5. Maintain a problem list of current and active Dxs based on ICD-9-CM or SNOMED CT.
  6. Maintain active medication list.
  7. Maintain active medication allergy list.
  8. Record and chart changes in vital signs.
  9. Record smoking status for patients 13 years or older.
  10. Report hospital clinical quality measures to CMS or States.
  11. Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information, upon request.
  12. Provide patients an e-copy of discharge instructions at time of discharge, upon request.
  13. Exchange key clinical e-information among providers and patient-authorized entities.
  14. Protect electronic health information.

Menu Set Objectives

These are the “menu set” of 10 objectives from which organizations must implement at least 5. At least one public health objective must be chosen from this set as well (numbers 8, 9, or 10).

  1. Drug-formulary checks.
  2. Record advanced directives for patients 65 years or older.
  3. Incorporate clinical lab test results as structured data.
  4. Generate lists of patients by specific conditions.
  5. Use certified eHR technology to identify patient-specific education resources and provide to patient, if appropriate.
  6. Medication reconciliation.
  7. Summary of care record for each transition of care/referrals.
  8. Capability to submit electronic data to immunization registries/systems.
  9. Capability to provide electronic submission of reportable lab results to public health agencies.
  10. Capability to provide electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies.

Assessment

As can be seen in the link below, the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare IT (ONCHIT) is a component of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ONCHIT, usually abbreviated just ONC, is the principal policy group of the Federal Government that defines and manages NHIN.

  • ONC is responsible for coordinating with the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on the specifications for the NHIN standards.
  • The HIT Policy and HIT Standards Committees are the working groups that advise ONC on what to put in the standards.
  • NIST is responsible for coming up with the test materials (assertions, procedures, methods, tools, data, and so on) that will be used to certify working systems.

Conclusion

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Ease Up – Managing Editor Bob Mitchell

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

By Darrell K. Pruitt; DDS

[picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=doctors+computers&iid=131173″ src=”0127/4caf5e52-a89a-4ddb-a0b2-bf4b6789c92b.jpg?adImageId=11344576&imageId=131173″ width=”414″ height=”413″ /]

Two days ago, ADVANCE for Health Information Executives’ managing editor Bob Mitchell publicly criticized the author of last week’s Parade Magazine article, “Electronic Health Records Face Critics.” Personally, I thought it was cowardly for the editor to accuse Drew Jubera of journalistic recklessness without mentioning his name.

http://community.advanceweb.com/blogs/hx_1/archive/2010/03/16/critics-ehrs-don-t-save-money.aspx

According to Jubera

Jubera wrote:

“A new Harvard Medical School study suggests that electronic health records do not save hospitals money—and in fact often end up increasing costs. The Obama Administration has allocated $19 billion in federal stimulus funds to facilitate the shift from paper to electronic records – a move the Rand Corporation has projected could save up to $80 billion a year. Yet the Harvard study found no evidence of savings so far and little evidence that electronic records improve care.”

http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/100314-electronic-health-records-face-critics.html

Dis-Respects Harvard

Incredibly, Bob Mitchell discounts the Harvard Medical School study as being dated research – even though it is less than 5 months old. “I did some research and found that this study was released back in November 2009, even before meaningful use of an eHR had been defined by [ONCHIT] – or the Office of National Coordinator of Health IT.” As if defining meaningful use was meaningful! That’s humor.

Dis-Respects Parade

Furthermore, editor Mitchell has taken on the responsibility to shield his readers from harm caused by Parade Magazine authors whose ethics fall short of acceptable.

He writes:

“I’m concerned that the public is not being served and they will get the wrong impression of computers in health care, especially if it’s being reported by Parade, which reports celebrity, entertainment and health news.”

Of Healthcare Providers

Not so fast with those tricky pronoun phrases, Bob. Rather than being merely a healthcare stakeholder like you, I’m actually the healthcare provider whom you would have fund your enthusiasm. I think your broad statement that “all of us in healthcare know that digital is much better than paper” is journalistically foolish. In addition, your creativity threatens society much more than alleged exaggerations in Parade Magazine. You not only write about HIT as a career, but people generously call you a managing editor.

eMRs in Dentistry 

The next time you feel important enough to quietly insult writers on behalf of providers like me, remember that eMRs in dentistry will not save money over paper records and will unnecessarily increase the risk of identity theft for my patients … unless you disagree.

It would thrill me if you want to publicly debate the value of electronic dental records (How much do you know about dentistry?)

Assessment

For example, do you realize that if a computer containing thousands of patients’ identifying data is stolen in a burglary, and the dentist, or physician, does the right thing and reports the data breach, he or she will likely be bankrupt even before the HIPAA inspections and lawsuits?

The Ponemon Institute estimates that it will cost about $50 per record just to notify affected patients. A few weeks ago, the HHS was obligated to release information that a burglar stole a computer containing more than 9,000 records from a Missouri dental practice. Just to notify the affected patients will cost the practice almost half a million dollars. But wait. That’s not all. Since the loss involves over 500 individuals, news of the breach must be provided as a press release to the local media. As goes the dentist’s reputation, so goes the dentist’s career – all because of a simple burglary.

Conclusion

So what were you saying about dangerous, biased articles in Parade Magazine? The author whose ethics you criticize has a name. It is Drew Jubera. He’s an award-winning staff member of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in Atlanta GA – home of this ME-P.  I’ll make sure he also gets this message.

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