Government & Policy

Mortality rates have not improved, and obesity is on the rise, but there Is some good news.

The answer to that question, says Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO John Halamka, MD, is that we need the right amount of the right regulation and legislation.  

Starting in 2019, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will change how they pay physicians in a profound way. Unfortunately, the details are complicated and confusing, and many of the particulars have yet to be worked out, which has led many healthcare leaders to glaze over the details and focus on more immediate concerns.

Now that we have experience with two stages of meaningful use, it's also clear that a three year cycle is needed to ensure safe, high value, well adopted, introduction of new IT functionality.

After nearly 20 years as a CIO, I've learned that even with the best people, best planning and appropriate budgets, large, complex projects encounter issues imposed by external factors that cannot be predicted during initial project scheduling.

What I find stifling is the pace at which meaningful use is proceeding. When you put an entire industry under the MU pressure cooker, the need to meet federal mandates overwhelms anything else.

I wanted to learn more about the hurdles smaller, clinic-based physicians are encountering when trying to switch EHR vendors.