Comments on: News 8/28/09

By: The Alchemist

The Alchemist — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:31:31 +0000

A National browser-based EHR has a propensity score for success as that antidotal carburetor that gets 100 miles per gallon. The healthcare industry would handle a national standard browser-based EHR solution that same way the oil industry terminates innovation for fuel economy; with extreme prejudice.

By: Michael Peters

Michael Peters — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:28:33 +0000

Thanks for the followup. I will look at the Joint Commission’s website. I do not believe HIMSS would take the initiative anyway, because of their close association with their own group, EHRVA, and H. Stephen Lieber’s role as CCHIT Trustee Chair. I was hoping HIMSS and CCHIT would take the lead and prove to the HIT industry that they actually care, that they are not in it just for the money.

It is well known in the HIT industry that Patient Safety issues do not come first for HIMSS or EHRVA. And Mark Leavitt, chair of CCHIT, answers to his boss, H. Stephen Lieber, who has paid his salary and healthcare benefits up to January 2009.

So until H. Stephen Lieber steps down as CCHIT Trustee Chair (and possibly steps down as HIMSS CEO) we should not expect change. Expect more of the same.

By: Nancy Nurse

Nancy Nurse — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:50:27 +0000

I took the SNOMED course this week. It is a worthwile introduction if you don’t know anything about standardization.

By: Deborah Kohn

Deborah Kohn — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:07:24 +0000

Re: Sunquest, Mass General, Partners – And, I’ve said for years that if you want to see success in getting benefits from medical device integration, find yourself some clinical lab people! After all, the clinical lab is a room(s) of stand-alone, proprietary medical devices / instruments. The fact that during the 1980s these folks figured out the rules, repositories, instrument interfaces, etc. (and are now looking at genomics, clinical alerting, data warehousing, etc.), makes me wonder why today we are having such a tough time doing same with the plethora of stand-alone, proprietary devices / instruments that beg to be integrated into our EHRs.

By: Not a lawyer

Not a lawyer — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:42:43 +0000

To Michael Peters:

I think the Joint Commission will solve this problem. Want to pass Joint Commission inspections? Don’t buy medical devices whose defects you’ve agreed not to disclose.

The Joint Commission will have to do this, because with this knowledge in the public domain, if a patient is harmed or dies at a hospital that passed JC inspection, from a health care IT malfunction or defect that could have been prevented by knowledge sharing with some other hospital or the vendor itself, there really will be hell to pay from many quarters in the court room.

The vendors in their arrogance and hospital executives (such as CIO’s) in their naivete have painted themselves into a very, very unpleasant corner.