I just don’t buy into the plan that the government should have so much control on private enterprise – this will come back to haunt all of us. People are giving away their freedoms – they will live to regret it. They need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid and see all of this for what it really is. So, jgo ahead and ump on the money band wagon and ride it straight to hell. I’m very worried that all this money we’re going to throw at healthcare by this administration will only lead to a lot of thrashing, systems purchased that will be poorly implemented or started and abandoned, and government trying to dictate something that they don’t understand. As most of your readers understand, the electronic EMR is a means to an end – it isn’t the solution in and of itself – it’s only the beginning. It’s how we use the data stored electronically that will make healthcare more efficient and effective.

But, on the other side of the discussion – someone should set Bill O’Reilly straight about paper vs. electronic medical records. Whether we should have our health record electronically stored, easily accessible to authorized providers of care, regardless of where that care is being given, isn’t the issue. You can’t run around saying that paper records should remain – they are inefficient, inaccurate, inaccessible, and unusable. Rather, we should focus on legislation to allow citizens to truly “own” their medical record and letting them authorize where it will be stored, and who can have access to it. Paper vs. electronic isn’t the issue. Ownership of the data, where it’s stored, and how it is accessed and by whom is where the real discussions need to occur to quiet the fears on the electronic vs. paper electronic medical record.

I usually like Bill – but he really doesn’t get the issues here. The technology isn’t the problem, per se. It’the laws around its’ use and ownership of the data.

Love your candor. Please keep it up, and humor is hysterical.

I love your blog but when I have to read through junk like this I feel like I just wasted part of my life and wonder if I should just swear off blogs and leave them to the paranoid people out there who love to stitch together their crazy theories.
Any way you could mark or tag these so we could focus on interesting / meaningful content? Could readers rank the comment posts for you on a few axis that would allow us to more quickly screen the stuff each person liked?

Does she have a strategic plan of how to scale it when they play the game of not letting anyone become trained in the system unless they work for a hospital that is installing it already? Does training your house in staff only to watch them leave to become consultants really make sense?

How many implementations a year can they handle? Does it work for small critical access hospitals? Will she sell it to anyone who wants to buy it or use the bizarre vetting process she has?

Why did she get appointed to a public policy committee when she won’t even let people take her picture? I guess HIMSS is happy though. They gutted the NeHC board and replace it with a vendor who has no intention of open source software. Hopefully they won’t have any power.

Odd that Lori Evan’s who bailed on her New York job didn’t make the cut. Guess she is up next as the CEO of NeHC although what role the will play is unclear.

Of the NeHC board Arthur Davidson, (Public Health) Paul Tang, Palo Alto Medical – Epic site) Charles Kennedy (WellPoint) and Kevin Hutchinson – Prematics (who oddly at the board meetings we have heard so far is pretty out of the loop) and represents the drug industry basically (sure scripts cofounder).

I don’t know who advised GAO but I am guessing that since HIMSS just sent out a request for its members to help define meaningful use for some unnamed client that they have the inside track. Sad to see what happens when you throw government funds at the private sector. Oh that’s right. banking.. same thing..