Technology
Industry Surveys
Breakthroughs Reports
Events
Departments
- Leadership
- Finance
- Technology
- Physicians
- Community Hospitals
- Health Plans
- Marketing
- Quality
- Nursing
- HR
- Service Lines
HIT Panelist Bashes CCHIT as Legacy Vendors' Puppet
The commission charged with certifying health information technology is unduly influenced by legacy vendors whose concern for their own welfare is threatening the success of the national HIT initiative, a healthcare analyst told a federal workgroup Tuesday.
Brian Klepper, a panelist at Tuesday's HIT Policy Committee Certification/Adoption Workgroup hearing in Washington, DC, said the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology is led by people with strong ties to legacy software vendors and their trade group, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
"CCHIT was founded by HIMSS. The executive director came from HIMSS. The chairman of the board is president of HIMSS, and it is dominated by a vendor mentality," he said. "CCHIT gives HIT legacy vendors inappropriate influence over policy and it threatens to facilitate a national HIT approach that would fall short of healthcare reform's goals. Whether or not it is actually conflicted, it certainly gives the appearance of being conflicted in a way that would not be tolerated throughout most of the private sector."
Klepper suggested that the CCHIT's role in defining certification rules be reduced, and that other certifying entities be brought in to perform those functions. He also suggested that CCHIT's executive leadership "should be replaced."
That idea didn't sit well with CCHIT Chairman Mark Leavitt, who was sitting a few feet from Klepper on the same panel.
Leavitt, the former CMO at the HIMSS, denied the assertion that legacy vendors are running the show at CCHIT. However, he said it would be unrealistic to exclude vendors from the process.
"Some people have said ‘You are certifying products. You should not allow any vendors to participate in your program or be on board,'" Leavitt said. "That is like saying ‘Let's create a system to test cars and not have anyone who's has ever designed or built cars on the board.' If you exclude the vendors, you probably exclude two-thirds or three-fourths of the people who've been involved in HIT."
He also bristled at Klepper's conflict of interest charge. "I've got 25-30 years in healthcare IT. Those who sit on public stage and impugn the integrity of an individual should at least–before they do it–talk to some people who know that person," Leavitt said.
- Healthcare Reform Passage Could Come Down to Three Ifs
- Medical Breakthroughs That Will Change Healthcare
- Four Steps to Better Leadership
- Killingsworth Resigns from BCBS of MA
- Ten Ways to Increase Nurses' Time at the Bedside
- Computer-Controlled Pancreas Could Close the Diabetes Loop
- Pure Genius: TPA and Hospital Collaborate to Decrease Denials and Save
- Physicians Step Up Protests Against Medicare Cuts
- RAC Audits Now a Potential Risk for Physicians
- Changing Bad Employee Habits Will Take Time, Patience
Rick Weinhaus, M.D. (7/18/2009 at 4:45 PM)
to Perspectoff and others: Anyone who posts anonymously may have potential biases or unstated ties or interests. Unless you are a physician (like myself) who has had actual experience with an unusable CCHIT-certified legacy system, you may not be aware of how harmful the CCHIT model can be to patient care. Please see my post on The Health Care Blog. http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2009/06/an-open-letter-to-dr-david-blumenthal.html You may also not be aware that in the 2008 American Academy of Family Physicians survey of EHR software, the legacy products were, without exception, rated the least usable.
Perspectoff (7/17/2009 at 2:49 PM)
I reviewed the list of volunteers at CCHIT. There are active surgeons, pediatricians, behavioral health specialists, cardiologists on CCHIT -- 20% are physicians from both large medical centers and rural facilities. There are nurses, long-term health co-ordinators, and other health related workgroup participants. In addition you have standards experts, privacy attorneys, representatives from each major vendor of software (not just those that are MUMPS-based, i.e. EPIC and VistA). You have HIE experts, military and government experts, etc. It would be impossible for any organization to duplicate the breath of expertise that CCHIT has assembled. When someone is bashing "legacy" vendors, that is usually someone like Oracle who wants to quickly break into Health IT. The answer to a company like Oracle is: why not be a participant in CCHIT? There is nothing stopping you. CCHIT is all inclusive. CCHIT is not HIMSS. Further, it has a mix of government principles and business principles -- it is more discipined and efficient than many government organizations, but democratic in seeking stakeholders involvement. CCHIT evolved this way over several years. I wish many government operations could evolve by a similar path. As to the cost of certification -- well, every agency has to have money. (Or perhaps no one is noticing that state governments are going bankrupt because they don't do that good of a job of balancing their books). If there were financial barriers to certification, for an open source public-good vendor, for example, the government with its ARRA stimulus funds could pay for certification in exchange for those products being made available for free or signficant discounts to underserved areas. That's not a new idea -- it's how National Health Service physicians get their education paid for, in exchange for serving the same types of underserved areas. No, I think this article is an obvious lobbying attempt to allow a few Johnny-come-latelys to come to the table and bypass an excellent certification process that has no parallel in existence. That's my view, anyway.
Steve Daviss MD (7/16/2009 at 5:25 PM)
So, should the focus be to certify the technology (mumps vs php/mysql vs morse code) or the function? How is it used? I'd like to see more discussion about what the EHR of the future should look like, not what is "possible" in 2011. I agree that there should be more diversity on CCHIT's Board. But my experience over the last 2 days is that the 265 volunteers which make up the standards workgroups (<1/3 have any vendor ties, including married to) are there to move health care into the info age, not the stone age. Criticism is good. Competition is better. We need 2-3 groups whose goals are to accelerate HIT adoption and evolution, not just CCHIT. (IMHO)