I’m excited to say that we’ve just been selected as one of the first six Service Providers with a Regional Extension Center (REC), CalHIPSO, identifying our firm as expert EHR consultants, fully qualified to assist physicians and medical groups in EHR system selection and adoption. Now what?
There are so many loose ends related to EHRs and the government’s plan to foster implementation and meaningful use, even EHR consultants are growing weary of waiting for action!
Here are just a few things promised by Uncle Sam, that are still lagging or in limbo:
- Final Meaningful Use Criteria for Stage I, to apply to incentive payments in 2011 and 2012, are still pending.
- There are now final criteria for organizations that are interested in becoming entities that certify EHR technology, but that means organizations must apply and demonstrate how they meet the criteria – and the ONC (Office of National Coordinator) must approve the organizations. Only then can vendors submit their systems for certification.
- How and when can providers apply for, and receive the incentive payments available (HITECH Act) for demonstrating meaningful use of certified EHR technology? Many providers will be able to demonstrate meaningful use beginning in January 2011 – but all these questions must be answered first.
- Regional Extension Centers (RECs) have been awarded grants to assist Priority Primary Care Providers in selecting and implementing EHR technology and meeting meaningful use criteria – but most have not received any actual dollars as the ONC reviews and re-reviews their budgets. While it is comforting that intensive review can reduce the “boondoggle factor” in this part of the program, it also means no providers are being helped yet.
- Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) are supposed to make all this digital health information available to providers when it is needed, but no one knows how they will be funded for the long term, or even how providers will connect to them. And one of the current draft meaningful use criteria objectives is to successfully send information to an HIE.
- Finally, at least for this post, thousands of Health IT workers are needed to install and maintain all these new EHR systems, andcommunity colleges are the institutions identified to provide the education and training for these folks. But they are just now being awarded grants to develop these training programs, so it will be months, if not years, before trained staff start to come into the workforce.
So if you are a medical provider scared off by all this uncertainty, what should you do? Well, if nothing else, keep educating yourself. You don’t have to become an expert on EHR systems, but you should begin to understand the basic due diligence in Evaluating and Selecting an EHR System.
Comments are closed.