You actually read and posted at emrupdate, the place where they came up with the anit-CCHIT standard idea, “SHOVEL”, and you still volunteered for a CCHIT workgroup? Did you not learn anything?

Kidding aside, just don’t let them use/abuse your efforts. At the least, make them **pay** you; they do make a lot of money and can afford it.

Al

a) The big boy vendors club together in a common cause to foist their hospital software into physician offices because the requirements must be the same right?

b) They come up with a common list of features that they all had to implement in their hospitals.

c) They then write them up along with some test cases and then extort $30,000 (actually more) from small businesses to polute their own software with these near useless features.

d) With lobbying they open the door for hospitals to further add to the problem and proliferate the need for CCHIT certification.

e) The cash rolls in, they announce multi-million dollar profits which they share among themselves in accordance to their incorporation policy documents.

f) Given the success of this ploy they increase prices and prepare to drive small businesses out of business.

Another government intervention folly – if the features are needed so badly the vendors would already be supplying to meet demand.

Physicians are too smart to put up with this for long.

I used to be a reader of emrupdate and really appreciate the diligence of Dr. Borges on the issue of CCHIT. I, too, was among the critics of the certification and, in many ways, still am.

Although I can’t speak to the behind-the-door dealings of the organization, I can speak to the quality of the folks serving on the workgroups – as I am serving on one now. Yes, as RtK noted, the groups are comprised primarily of folks from large-organizations. And, at least in some of the other workgroups, I sense that some members are there are “placeholders” for their employers.

However, I admit to be pleasantly surprised by how knowledgeable, dedicated, and earnest most of the folks I’ve met (particularly in my workgroup) really are. I like to think I know what I’m talking about in my niche within a niche, but what an eye opener it was to meet so many folks with deep(er) backgrounds.

Sure, I question many parts of the process as we go, but at the micro level, I see nothing but dedication towards “doing it right.” Don’t get me wrong: I am still very much concerned with the CCHIT certification issues (Jim Tate: do you really believe CCHIT makes the sales people LESS slippery? It’s made them WORSE!), but I do think there may be some positive results.

Dr. Borges, one thing I’d like to add to your list of standards is the fact that even when two entities agree on a given “standard” there is, within each of them, so much room for interpretation that it’s almost worthless. Anyone here who talks about being HL7 compliant – and thinks it really solves a problem – has never personally written an interface. Boy, even the good ol’ HCFA-1500 form – everyone remember when that switched years back? It’s as “standard” as you can get…with 1001 different ways to complete the data within it.

I LIKE the idea of standards. I just see so few done properly.

The databases are so incompatible the integration between the 3 is using HL7 interfaces !

Cerner must be laughing all the way to the Leeds (sorry UK readers may get that).