Thanks, Dana: "Electronic Medical Record (it can be accessed within a health organization) . . . Electronic Health Record (it conforms to standards and can be accessed by multiple organizations". Verrrry Interesting, but NOT stupid (apologies to Arte Johnson of Laugh In fame). Will there be some oversight, I hope, of the EMRs; I hope so. There needs to be some recourse to what might be ?erroneous? in one?s EMRs. Otherwise it will certainly be abused (kind of like the militaries secret stamp has been used for cover up). I?m thinking of the particularly difficult to diagnose medical conditions which are almost always misdiagnosed the first time, and often many times thereafter. Discover reports on some of the more difficult cases, after they?ve finally been solved. I remember one article where a patient was categorized as a chronic complainer (mental) but kept on searching for help, finally finding a doctor who correctly diagnosed her condition, after many many other doctors ignored her complaints because of the ?chronic complainer? entry note in her medical records (doctors piggybacked off of the initial doctor?s diagnosis)!
I definitely don?t want to derail the implementation of EMR and EHR. As I?ve said before, the lack of such in many health care facilities is just ridiculous. The lack of effective use of ?computing? in health care is one of my hot buttons (based on personal experience). Very annoying, to say the least, not to mention the high costs of not having done so, both in customer service and health care quality.
The National Association for Health Information Technology (NAHIT), formed in 2003 to advocate for health IT, has decided its goals have been reached and is closing its doors.
A press statement from CEO Jane Horowitz said the American Hospital Association and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) are well-placed to carry on the work of implementing what NAHIT only advocated.
The NAHIT board consisted mainly of hospital IT executives.
Horowitz became CEO only last year, promising a sharpened focus on the intersection of health IT and health care delivery. It was also last year that the group formed an alliance with AHA and CHIME that has since made it redundant.
Horowitz succeeded Scott Wallace, a co-founder of CCHIT, who during his tenure helped spearhead the reconstruction of New Orleans’ health IT infrastructure after Hurricane Katrina. Wallace is currently at the University of Virginia.
NAHIT may be best known for its work in defining key health IT terms, which includes the difference between an Electronic Medical Record (it can be accessed within a health organization) and an Electronic Health Record (it conforms to standards and can be accessed by multiple organizations).
Under Wallace, NAHIT became a sort of stalking horse for CCHIT and a conduit between major users of health IT and Bush-era bureaucrats working on the issue. With health IT having gotten $19.2 billion in the Obama stimulus, advocacy and political connections seem a lot less relevant.
