I realize it's been quite a while since I taught - or was in school myself - but I'm distressed…
Morning Headlines 7/20/15
UCLA Health Victim of a Criminal Cyber Attack
UCLA Health announces that 4.5 million patient records have been compromised after discovering that during a September 2014 cyber attack, hackers had accessed secure parts of the network where medical records were stored.
Allscripts Shares Soar After Preliminary Results Beat Estimates
Allscripts reports preliminary Q2 results: expected revenue is projected at $350-$354 million, EPS $0.12, beating analyst expectations on both. Share prices climbed nine percent on the news.
Health IT Safety Center Roadmap
ONC publishes its Health IT Safety Center Roadmap which calls for the creation of a Health IT Safety Center where industry stakeholders would analyze emerging safety issues and generate evidence-based solutions and resources. The center is expected to generate $20 million in costs over its first five years of operation.
Drone Drug Delivery Flights Add International Research Element to Health Outreach
The first FAA-approved drone delivery system goes live, delivering pharmaceuticals to a free health clinic running in the rural community of Wise, VA.
Health IT Safety Center = boondoggle for the HIT cheerleaders. If I were in Congress, I would not fund this toothless amorphous programme.
Agree, toothless and amorphous while we allow Congress to de-fund AHRQ?
Money aside, how can ONC justify even a cursory patient safety role given negligence regarding BASIC EMR safe practices in MU? While accomplished and well-intentioned, serial ONC MD leaders (and HIMSS execs) lack EMR implementation expertise that could have driven them to step in before damage was done, rather then focus on cheer leading.
MU incentivized rapid deployment of too often poorly designed, “buggy” software. The misguided phasing of disjointed functionality hard-wired MD inefficiencies and, at times, unsafe practices while silent on change management, process redesign, MD/user engagement as CRITICAL for success. Did they not know or just decide to grab $30B hoping to tilt the scales toward EHRs with “clean up” later?
Whether “ignorance is bliss” or an “end justify the means” strategy, we are reaping what we sowed with preponderance of disillusioned, frustrated (angry) buyers and clinician end-users – hardly the intent of HITECH or HIT industry with 40 years of lessons learned we failed to consider. MU-driven EMR adopters were NOT pioneers.
ONC/HIMSS could “heal thyself” after the fact. But in spite of irrefutable data on HIT dangers (as well as potential benefits), we have still have no mandatory reporting much less means to hold HIT vendors and HCOs accountable (like airline industry) for known harmful defects. We seem satisfied that a consolidated patient safety article library is “progress”. Is the industry really this feckless?