I came across a couple of thought provoking articles that I hope you didn’t miss last week.    The first, by Anthony Guerra at HealthSystemCIO.com is  titled An Influential Voice For Restraint.  The second was an open letter to the ONC on it’s certification process by Jim Tate that was posted at govhealthit.com.

In An Influential Voice for Restraint Anthony Guerra makes the case that “the most effective advocate is not the individual who, from the beginning, has spoken out in favor of a cause, but one who previously occupied the opposing ground.”  In the article, the Influential Voice is that of John Halamka, M.D., who is resigning from his position as CIO of Harvard Medical School.

The article makes the case that Dr. Halamka, who is also the CIO of  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, appears to be changing  his earlier positive opinion of all that can be accomplished under the HITECH Act, and appears to be taking “issue with the pace of change being forced upon the industry by government.”

It’s a great article and one well worth reading.  The article also links to a recent post by Dr. Halamka where he makes a compelling case that Healthcare is Different and can’t be measured by the same guidelines applied to other industries.

Jim Tate, the author of the engaging and useful book The Incentive Roadmap (affiliate link), wrote an open letter to the ONC on it’s certification process.  In the letter Jim expresses his concern “that the current process of ONC guidance to the ONC-ATCBs could possibly lead to inconsistent interpretations of testing requirements which could lead to vendors shopping for the “easiest” test environment. ”

To quote from the letter:

“The bottom line is that in some instances it is significantly easier to successfully test and become certified depending on which ONC-ATCB a vendor selects.  The bottom line is that in some instances it is significantly easier to successfully test and become certified depending on which ONC-ATCB a vendor selects. Nobody is doing anything wrong here or trying to bend the rules. Every ONC-ATCB I have worked with has shown a high level of professionalism and integrity. However, the process by which ONC provides clarification to the ONC-ATCBs must be modified so all ONC-ATCBs know exactly what functional elements and specifications are required during testing.”

I’d encourage you to read Jim’s open letter at govhealthit.com.

Image Credit aafromaa

There were a number of really great articles on EHR and EMR this week that I didn’t get a chance to blog on.  If you’re interested in doing some weekend reading consider checking these articles out.

Chris Thorman, who blogs about electronic medical records at Software Advice,  wrote a fascinating blog post on the possible use of Twitter as a way of tracking the causes, distribution and control of disease in different populations.  I also loved the title which was “Twitter: Growing Virally But Can it Stop Viruses?”

David Goldman from CNN Money wrote a great summary article on the current state of Electronic Health Records, highlighting many of the obvious challenges with reaching the goals set by the Obama administration.   The article grabs you right away by beginning with:  “Getting an electronic health record system in place by 2014? Tough.  Getting hospitals to pay millions now for systems that comply with unknown standards and implement them by October 2010? Yikes!”

Finally Infoworld writer, Jennifer Kavur, wrote an instructive article on the arduous patch to Electronic Health Records that is taking place in Canada.  Canada is well behind much of the developed world when it comes EHR implementation, as we are here in the US.  Reading the article may shed additional light on what we may be facing.

If you’re in the US – enjoy the parades and the fireworks!

First on the list for this weekend is a series of thought provoking posts by John at emrandhipaa.com on the CCHIT certification process.  There are three total posts and it’s best to read them order.

• Thoughts on the New CCHIT EHR Certification Paths
• Certified EHR and Meaningful Use
• Real Purpose of EHR Certification

The next entry on the list is from Brian Ahier who wrote a very useful summary of Tuesday’s “Meaning Use” meetings on his Brian Ahier – Healthcare IT Blog.  When you go to his post, entitled Meaningful Use Almost Defined please note the “Listen Now” widget at the top of the post.  It offers a shockingly good audio version of the post.

It’s the first time I’ve seen this really cool widget which will allow you to listen online or download to iTunes or an MP3 player.  The widget is from odiogo.com.

Finally I saw a great post on GetBetterHealth.com last week by Dr. Rob that originated on his personal blog the week before so I’m going to cheat and say it was published last week.  The post, entitled Radical Moderation, can be found at Musings of a Distractible Mind.  The post is basically an informed rant about the state of the health care system.  While it is not specifically about the Electronic Medical Record world it is worth checking out.  One take away from the article – Health Care and partisan politics don’t mix well together.

Are there any particular favorite posts of yours that I missed last week?  Please let me know in the comment section.