ATLANTA — A jazz selection played ever so quietly in the background as attendees of the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS; Chicago) 10th annual conference waited for Wednesday morning's keynote session to begin.
The mood was a bit mellow and the music almost seemed to drown out the tremendous level of responsibility that was placed on attendees in the race to initiate dynamic changes to the nation's beleaguered healthcare system. Throughout the week, HIMSS 10 participants were constantly reminded of this fact through a plethora of speakers, educational sessions and town hall meetings.
Device makers and those developing solutions responded to the call and brought out their best offerings – from smart phone applications that could specifically analyze a cough, to imaging techniques that could have a greater degree of clarity for standard imaging.
Wednesday's keynote speaker David Blumenthal, MD, who serves as the national coordinator for health information technology (HIT) with the Department of Health and Human Services praised the audience for their work in pushing HIT solutions forward and told them that they were the “leaders“ in innovation that would revitalize America's antiquated healthcare system.
“I'm a newcomer to HIMSS and to this world of Health Information Technologies,“ Blumenthal told the audience. I got into electronic health records not as an informatician but because about 10 years ago an electronic health record came across my desk,“ he said. “I was trained with paper and I was quite comfortable with paper. I didn't see the need for change. But gradually and slowly I found electronic health records were making me a better physician.“
The moment of truth came for Blumenthal seconds before he was about to unknowingly prescribe a medicine that a patient was allergic to.
When he entered the prescription in electronically, an alert went off letting him know that the patient was allergic to that treatment. He said at that moment his “professional career flashed before his very eyes.“
This moment made Blumenthal an advocate of EHR systems and put him on a path to be selected by President Obama to develop a HIT infrastructure for the entire country.
“Information is the lifeblood of medicine and [HIT] is the circulatory system of medicine,“ Blumenthal said. “As long as we keep the patient as our North Star and guiding light we will not go astray.“
He pointed out current initiatives that the taskforce was working on and gave a short update on the success the group was having.
The current objectives for the HIT taskforce are: To work with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service to develop the proposed rule of meaningful use; To finalize standards on certification and criteria for EHR; To give notice of recognition of the certification process through regulation; and to give new guidance on the implication on the Collection of Laws for Electronic Access for the information of health exchange.
“In addition to these regulations we've announced a wide array of programs,“ Blumenthal said.
Funding from these initiatives comes from the $2 billion that President Obama authorized in the American Recovery and Reinvestment act.
“We're going to use $700 million to start up regional exchange centers to help physicians with EHR systems,“ he said. “These will be set up to help practices with [less than] 10 physicians. Already we've announced 32 of these regional exchange centers and more will be announced [later] this month.“
Another $564 million will be used to help the states with the implementation of developing an information exchange infrastructure. Blumenthal stressed that the government isn't expecting states to start implementing information exchange infrastructure – but that funding would help make the states a part of the process.
Also nearly $235 million will go toward funding communities that Blumenthal says are leaders or “shining beacons of success“ for implementing HIT.
He said that since he took the position back in March of 2009 that nearly all of the $2 billion in funding available for HIT has been designated to programs and implementation. He added that his staff, which can “fit into a school bus,“ is growing and that in the coming months the task force will be extremely busy – but their job will shift somewhat.
“Our priorities going forward will be different,“ he told the audience. “We wrote policy, now we will begin implementation.“
To date, Blumenthal said the taskforce has received tremendous bipartisan support. He touted that electronic records are a foregone conclusion and that ultimately, professionalism would help facilitate the widespread use of EHR systems in the healthcare community.
“The idea that you can be a competent professional without managing information, I think defies belief,“ Blumenthal said. “Some may see this as the audacity of hope, but I see this as common sense.“
Omar Ford, 404-262-5546;