The Best Way to Spend the Coming Federal Health IT Money: An Open Letter to the Obama Health Team

An Open Letter to the Obama Health TeamBy David C. Kibbe & Brian KlepperIt seems likely that the Obama administration and Congress will spend a significant amount on health IT by attaching it as a first-order priority to the fiscal stimulus package. We take the President-elect at his word when he recently said:“...we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the

2009 a Year of Surprises and Change for the EHR Technology Market

2009 a Year of Surprises and Change for the EHR Technology Marketby DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER"Oft expectation fails, and most oft thereWhere most it promises; and oft it hitsWhere hope is coldest, and despair most fits." All's Well That Ends Well (II, i, 145-147)2009 began with a bang for legacy Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors, promising strong sales and windfall profits

Finally, A Reasonable Plan for Certification of EHR Technologies

by DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPERA caution to readers: This post is about methods for certifying Electronic Health Record (EHR) technologies used by physicians, medical practices, and hospitals who hope to qualify for federal incentive payments under the so-called HITECH portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). It may not be as critical as the larger health care reform

An Open Letter to the New National Coordinator for Health IT: Part 4 -- Bringing Patients into the Conversation About "Meaningful Use" of Health IT

by DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPERThe Obama health team at HHS and ONC are gradually establishing the rules that will determine how approximately $34 billion in ARRA/HITECH funds are spent on health IT over the next several years. But there is a "missing link" in these deliberations that, so far, has not been addressed by Congress or the Administration: how the patient's voice can be "

"An Open Letter to the New National Coordinator for Health IT: Part 3 -- Certification As The Elephant in Health IT's Living Room"

by DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPERIn the first and second parts of this series we talked about how and why there is no universal definition for the term "EHR." Instead there is a legitimate, growing debate about the features and functions that "EHR technologies" should offer physicians seeking to qualify for HITECH incentive payments. We explored the layers of network technology, suggesting that

"An Open Letter to the New National Coordinator for Health IT - Untying HITECH's Gordian Knot: Part 1"

An Open Letter to the New National Coordinator for Health IT - Untying HITECH's Gordian Knot: Part 1by DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPERCongratulations to David Blumenthal on being named National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT). Dr. Blumenthal will be the person most responsible for the rules and distribution of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's (ARRA) nearly $20

Five "Shovel-Ready" Health Care Reforms

Five "Shovel-Ready" Health Care ReformsBy Brian Klepper & David C. KibbeMicrosoft Health Vault's leader Peter Neupert has a wonderful blog post that makes two important points really well. One message is that health care reform is about the outcomes, not the technology. We should think expansively about which technologies to invest in, based on the results we want to get.The other message is the

Let's Reboot America's HIT Conversation--Part 2: HIT Beyond EHRs

Let's Reboot America's HIT ConversationPart 2: HIT Beyond EHRsby DAVID C. KIBBE AND BRIAN KLEPPERYesterday we tried to put EHRs into perspective. They're important, and we can't effectively move health care forward without them. But they're one of many very important HIT functions, and EHRs and HIT alone won't fix health care. So developing a comprehensive but effective national HIT plan is a

"Let's Reboot America's HIT Conversation---Part 1: Putting EHRs in Context"

Last Month David Kibbe and Brian Klepper asked me to post an open letter to the Obama Health Team with their thoughts on how to spend the coming federal health IT money. That letter ended up as the centerpiece of a Boston Globe story with the lead line, "some specialists are warning against investing too heavily in existing electronic recordkeeping systems."Encouraged by the response to that

"Five Recommendations for ONC Head Who Understands Health IT Innovation"

The team of David Kibbe and Brian Klepper are at it again with some advice on who best understands the health IT challenge in America:Five Recommendations for ONC Head Who Understands Health IT Innovationby DAVID KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPERNow that the legislative language of the HITECH Act -- the $20 billion health IT allocation within the economic stimulus package -- has been set, it's time to

Health Care Reform--The Stimulus PreGame

"Drug Makers Fight Stimulus Provision""Lobbying War Ensues Over Digital Data"The first was a recent Wall Street Journal headline and the second headline comes from the Washington Post. Both refer to what were supposed to be two already agreed on health care reform ideas--comparative research about which treatments work best and the creation of a nationwide system of medical records. The lesson