Comments on: Readers Write 6/24/09

By: HIS Junkie

HIS Junkie — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:27:14 +0000

Hey Bridget…
You got it… history keeps repeating itself, and what goes around comes around!

By: Deborah Kohn

Deborah Kohn — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:59:34 +0000

Thank you Encore Diva!

By: Al Borges MD

Al Borges MD — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:29:33 +0000

Hi BlueDog:

>>> HHS has been derelict in its responsibility.

I guess 2 things are in play- 1) “the end justifies the means”- if they can get CCHIT to somehow get physicians to buy into EMR then bending the rules can be ignored, and 2) as usual, someone got paid off big time.

Unfortunately, it’s very hard to prove the payoffs, especially during Bush’s time when PACs ruled. During Obama’s tenure you can track down payments done by the Cerners, the Allsripts, the GEs… very easily done. Occasionally I can hit paydirt when, for example, last week we had the issue of the NJ Rep Conaway who put forth an HIT bill prohibiting the sale of non-CCHIT EMR softwares. His financial disclosure sheet for 2007 did mention HIMSS among other HIT companies. Misteriously, for 2008, when he put out the first version of the bill, he stopped disclosing HIMSS as a lobbyist… I doubt very much that they suddenly stopped padding his pockets.

One of the things that is lauded is CCHIT’s “transparency”. What they don’t tell you is that there are several levels of transparency. THe 8/2006 minutes sheet is detailed to what seems to be every topic discussed. After the brief hiatus, the 12/2006 minutes suddenly became simple overview synopsis of the topics discussed… almost a “We came. We talked. We left.” format.

Today I heard that Obama wants to cut the incomes of physicians who take Medicare by 21%. How are they going to pay for EHR? They’re not, and if they don’t then CCHIT is dead. May it RIP.

By: Bridget

Bridget — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:31:21 +0000

The Service as a Service moniker – how is that any different from a mainframe with dumb terminals?? So we go from centralized to decentralized to centralized to decentralized……..

By: BlueDogSpirit

BlueDogSpirit — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:53:59 +0000

Dr. Borges,
Thank you for the link to your PDFs. You have done a lot of work to document CCHIT from the beginning. CCHIT was set up as a for-profit all along, with HIMSS CEO as the CCHIT Fiduciary Chair who would receive his equal share of the profit. Not bad for all three “tax exempt organizations” who provided $50,000 seed money! Surely HHS must have seen these PDFs. Question: how can tax exempt organizations operate as a for profit, and still receive funding from the government? Why wasn’t a freeze in funding implemented from HHS until a thorough investigation could be completed? Why has HHS continued to reward CCHIT & HIMSS? CCHIT paid lawyers and consultants to set up the org. Did they overlook setting up ADP payroll for CCHIT employees? Why did Lieber allow the “loan” for Leavitt’s (Igor’s) salary, and what other perks do we not know about? I have so many questions. It is going to take a grass-root effort from the entire HIT, EHR community to demand transparency and accountability from HIMSS & CCHIT. In my opinion, HHS has been derelict in its responsibility.