Blumenthal Speaks Part II: He's Ready

Speaking at the Markle Foundation's Connecting for Health conference, David Blumenthal, the national health IT coordinator, reported that he's now ready to work with health IT advisory panels specified by the Stimulus Act, Government Health IT reported. Who are these people, and what does he intend to accomplish?

Blumenthal shared the a first priority is to train a health IT workforce. He also professed the importance of interoperability and the need for health IT to improve the quality of care, Government Health IT reported. Although Blumenthal may have been more specific, he has not yet provided any specifics on how he will achieve health IT adoption. His predecessors were equally light on specifics, and the result was the passage of time with no significant movement in the use of health IT. Perhaps the next time we hear from Blumenthal, he'll provide something of value. Technology evangelicals we have. What we need are people to execute on interoperability standards and IT adoption.

The short story here: http://govhealthit.com/articles/2009/04/30/article_0.aspx


Early funding will be particularly important in efforts to open extension centers for technical assistance to healthcare providers, in training a health IT workforce and to spark health information exchange, Blumenthal said.

Interoperability is especially essential to protecting the public health, he said, citing the example of “the incipient potential pandemic that we are facing.”

“We will be, I hope, working quickly but wisely to develop those policies,” Blumenthal said. He said welcomed the contributions of organizations, such as Connecting for Health, to assist the government in setting direction on health IT, and, “telling us how to prevent the problems we could create by regulating too much or by being too precise or specific or by being too intrusive.”

“At the same time it is clear that this field has not advanced enough when left exclusively to the private sector,” he said.

Blumenthal said putting the health IT provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into effect would improve healthcare efficiency, quality and population health.

“We understand that health information technology is a vital enabler to be part of a transformed 21st century healthcare system. If we could do it just as well without health IT, we would do it without health IT, but we can’t,” he said.

Under the law and beginning in 2011, increases in Medicare and Medicaid payments to providers would be based on their “meaningful use” of certified health IT.

Connecting for Health also announced its framework for meaningful use, emphasizing that HHS should start with practical goals. Meaningful use focus on medication management and coordination of care, functions that are achievable even for smaller practices via Internet-enabled technologies, it said.

The provision should prescribe standard information types that are electronic, widely adopted and which can support measurement of treatment outcomes.

The group also urged an approach that encourages innovation in the use of applications and services, particularly for small physician practices, according to Carol Diamond, Markle managing director and chair of the Connecting for Health initiative.

“We must invest this money in ways that support information use to improve quality, slow growth in costs and protect privacy, without creating undue burden on clinicians and practices,” she said.