ARRA/HITECH

In his opening remarks to the May 7 Health IT Policy Committee, Farzad Mostashari, M.D., national coordinator for health IT, spoke about work flow and business process changes that must accompany payment reform and technology infrastructure. Mostashari chose not to use the policy committee forum to address the recent suggestion by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) that Stage 2 of meaningful use be extended for an extra year. “We are halfway through the process of computerizing and digitizing healthcare settings, but only 5 percent of the way through redesigning work flows,” he said.

Six Senators sent letters to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and health IT stakeholders questioning the effectiveness of HITECH implementation. In response to the report, Secretary Sebelius said, “We haven’t gotten to implementation of Stage 2 yet,” Sebelius said in a recent Senate Finance Committee budget hearing. “You might be reading the final chapter before we launch it.”

The HHS Inspector General Office and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently unveiled proposals to amend the safe harbor regulation concerning electronic health records (EHRs) items and services. The proposed amendments include an update to the provision under which EHR software is deemed interoperable; removal of the electronic prescribing capability requirement; and extension of the sunset provision to Dec. 31, 2016.

The latest negative article finds that sales are up for EHR vendors who lobbied for the incentives, and it implies that increasing those sales and the salaries of its executives was the real purpose of the exercise.

With legislative activity burgeoning at the state level and a comprehensive bill introduced in the last session of Congress, telehealth advocates believe they have momentum to push for inclusion.