Stakeholders see long MU road ahead
By Jeff Rowe, Editor
As the dust settles on the final Meaningful Use regulations, stakeholders are increasingly wondering aloud whether, after all is said and done, the hard work will result in the desired payoff.
According to participants at the Institute for Health Technology Transformation’s Summer Health IT Summit in Denver, the answer seems to be, “Well, yes and no.”
One stakeholder argues that “the incentive funding is a baby step to facilitate transformation within the industry, and likely was the best that Congress could come up with to get the industry to accelerate automation . . .but the incentives are not big enough and will compete against other incentives that perpetuate the status quo.”
In his eyes, foremost among those opposing incentives is the way doctors get paid. For example, “hospitals . . . make more money on foot and leg amputations than on keeping diabetics healthy. Consequently, it’s impossible in this political environment and economy to think that problems the meaningful use incentives are designed to correct will be fixed quickly. The incentives may support industry transformation but won’t make it happen.”
The remarks of other participants are equally mixed, with the consensus seeming to be that “HITECH has done its job to prod the industry.”
While that consensus may not be what some HIT advocates would like to hear, it may be as good a reaction as one could realistically hope for. After all, for a problem as complex as transforming the technological foundation of the country’s healthcare system there is not likely to be any single silver bullet.
But given that money gets people’s attention, and given that the feds have certainly been committing a lot of it, lately, to the cause of new HIT, change is bound to happen. It’s just going to take time, and no single proposed solution will accomplish that change all on its own.
The industry, however, clearly knows change is coming. |
发表于 2010-7-30 21:28:08
