Providers skeptical of meaningful use reimbursement process

Providers skeptical of meaningful use reimbursement process"Under a draft of potential measures released in September by the HIT Policy Committee, eligible providers would have to use CPOE (computerized physician order entry) for all orders, implement drug-drug, drug allergy and drug-formulary checks and maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses based on ICD-9 or SNOMED.
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The issue of interoperability with hospitals in the local community is essential:
"...physicians from small practices often interact with more than five community hospitals and several labs, each with a different system. Doctors need to know that whatever electronic health record they buy will work with the systems the labs and hospitals have."

HITECH and its effect on HIT

An interesting article on how HITECH has its own set of unintended consequences. In this case, the government can "screw things up" by forcing providers into acquiring HIT systems at a such a fast rate (less than 24 months), that they end up buying " certified" systems by large vendors. The result being they end up with systems that are less innovative with poor usability. This is a sure way to stiffle HIT innovation and destroy entrepreneurship. And then we wonder why HIT systems are so primitive compared with systems in other industries. Remember, Meditech introduced the ability to point-and-click by a mouse only within the last 5-7 years. This article does a great job in explaining this: