I went to DC earlier this month to speak at a governmental "hearing" about Meaningful Use. Since the Feds are about to spend up to $40 billion on creating incentives for EMRs - I give them credit for wanting to make sure they hear as early as possible if there might be problems with their program.
I blogged about my experience at the HISTalk Blog, so full details are here:
http://histalk2.com/2011/01/18/the-mu-hearings-drlyle-goes-to-washington-11811/
For those who just are looking for a quick summary, here you go:
ONCHIT's Implementation Committee wanted to hear from Eligible Providers (EPs) and Hospitals about their early experience in preparing to meet MU requirements for this year.
The good news is that this bill has indeed "stimulated" many organizations to move forward with various upgrades and focus on how to produce quality reports from the data in their EMRs. But mostly we heard about the challenges:
• This is hard. It’s not impossible, but it’s a higher bar than many had anticipated because the requirements are not simple, nor are they fully explained.
• Time crunch. There is a very tight time frame between the release of the requirements, embedding them into EMRs, the "rollout" of the new EMRs, and the updating of workflows and reports to ensure users are actually meeting the MU requirements.
• Resource crunch. This is often a zero-sum game with resources.
• We need more flexibility. Not every practice is the same, and requiring 100% mandate of every requirement is not reasonable.
• Functionality is not the same as usability. An EMR vendor can get MU certification for their functionality whether their usability is great, good, or poor. Fortunately, the government is starting to look into usability requirements for the certification process, so let’s hope they follow through on that sentiment.
• Standards. "We’d rather have one bad standard we can work with than three good ones without a clear winner." On the other hand, we should make it clear we do NOT want the government to make standards about actual functionality – we can and should be creative in that domain.
• The cost of implementing MU may often be more than the actual monies themselves, when you factor in costs for various software upgrades, consultants, and change management.
• Certification requirements don’t always exactly match MU process requirements. Someone has to keep a better eye on this.
• Communication with CMS and ONCHIT has not been easy.
• The result of most of the above is that the biggest and the best are struggling with MU… so you have to wonder, how much harder will it be for others?
It has been interesting that this is in stark contrast with recent ONCHIT announcements about a recent survey showing that the majority of doctors plan to apply for MU. However, let's be serious - most docs don't even know what MU means, and less than 25% even use a "basic" EMR (and under 10% use an "advanced" EMR). So if a doctor gets asked, "Do you plan to apply for free money from the government for using EMRs in the coming years?"... it should not be a shock that most will say, "Sure, I'll give it a try."
I know ONCHIT is trying to keep an optimistic view here, but I wished they spent some time at these hearings listening to real world users and less time crowing about a survey asking a hypothetical question. In fact, no one from ONCHIT actually came to these hearings - even though they paid for people from all across the country to fly in (to be fair and balanced, someone from ONCHIT did listen on the phone during the morning session, and the Committee did summarize and report to ONCHIT later on).
I think we all agree that ONCHIT's goals are noble, but if they don't get feet first into the reality of the situation, they will have a hard time getting there - these hearings were a good step in the right direction, and I hope they continue to keep their ears on the ground and make adjustments as appropriate.
Relevant Links
- Full details and testimonies from the hearings
- Review of the different types of ONC Certifications
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