Greg Gillespie of Health Data Management has the best ‘round-up’ that captures the essence of what was so… ‘meaningful’ at HIMSS 2010.
Including Y2K and the dot-bomb era, I have never attended more vendor product sessions that preached something new, but did not do anything different than before. What I witnessed were some existing vendor offerings (pigs) with some ‘meaningful use’ (lipstick) slapped on them.
I liked Greg’s article because I wondered who else caught on to the fact that answering ‘how’ and ‘what makes meaningful use work’ was the real underlying message at HIMSS 2010.
Push ARRA ‘meaningful use’ and ICD-10 aside and Greg hits on the realization that “All this stimulus/EHR talk is driving home the point that electronic records now must be the center of a spider web…” Interoperability is the glue that can weave together the myriad of vendors and solutions that will enable organizations to not just grab ARRA dollars, but build a framework that can share patient-centric data inside an organization’s four walls as well as external to those four walls.
Granted the ‘spider web’ in its previous incarnations (interface engine, integration engine, interoperability, etc.) have been the focus of HIMSS past; yet, many providers bought the single solution set which houses siloed information. They were not wrong in doing so, in fact, they should keep what they have and augment where needed, be compliant with all of the criteria in the ‘meaningful use’ objectives.
The bottom line is that there is no ‘single bullet’ when it comes to meaningful use. I truly hope “that CIOs and other decision makers … are effortlessly poking holes in that pitch” as Greg states in his article. He continues to say that these same decision makers should be demanding “Show me the data exchange…” So we hope.
Oh, and to the HDM team, thanks for the HDM shirt. Very nice. I’m shooting for the Vespa next time!
Interesting read Zane, thanks for sharing.