HIT misses Meaningful, hits pessimist
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This week, the Health Information Technology (HIT) Committee, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, released its definition of “meaningful use”. I have reviewed the presentation, and you may find some interesting content at Healthcare IT News.
Before I begin, it’s important to note that I am a pessimist. I am naturally pre-disposed to the glass half empty mind set. After 10 years in Business Intelligence for Health Care my membership in the glass half empty club is guaranteed.
What’s so wrong with the proposed definition and procedures for “meaningful use”? Well, let me start by asking how you define (don’t get me started on measure) ‘meaningful’? It’s like defining ‘reasonable’ or ‘appropriate’. What is meaningful for me will likely not be meaningful for you. Then, I look at the participants on the work group. I was hoping to see a good mix of technical with business. I saw lots of very impressive health care expertise but no one with a highly technical background. I understand that meaningful use has more to do with the impact data and information can have on the quality of care, but shouldn’t a strong dose of reality come in to play from someone that does this for a living? It’s quite easy to define the broad impact information can have on care, quite another to deliver it from a technical perspective. That is true for just about any IT or Business Intelligence project you under-take, but particularly true in this project.
I hope that the next release from the HIT Committee and the work group are the details as to how to technically achieve their vision. For that phase of work I hope they bring in the vast experience that exists from states like Nebraska and organizations like Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Most importantly, I hope that they are able to prove this pessimist wrong.
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