Letter Sent to Mr. Terry in Response to article "More Low-Cost EHRs Certified"

Reply

alborg Posted: 11-12-2006 4:42 AM

Hi Mr. Terry:

I read your Medical Economics article "More Low-Cost EHRs Certified" with great interest. It's well written, but much of the data may have been obtained directly from CCHIT, or those associated with CCHIT, and thus is grossly WRONG in some areas. For example:

>>> The certification of these products—and similar ones in the earlier round—counter claims by CCHIT critics that certification inevitably discriminates against small vendors and those that seek to enter the market with new products.

Please see the thread at http://www.emrupdate.com/forums/thread/58695.aspx. Heck, one of the companies had revenues over 20 million dollars in the first quarter of 2004! Most are typical medium-priced EMRs. There are no below-$10000 per physician EMRs here. The data is still being gathered, which is why I haven't given you listing yet. In a few days I'll have a full letter-to-the-editor if you are interested in posting it.

>>> "If the small guys are passing the test, then CCHIT is really not pushing them out," says Mark Anderson, a health IT consultant. "The standards are not that high."

No they are not. Their fees are, though. The need for these standards is also questionable- so any price is "too high" when this process should be done for free by Medicare, who has plans on using it to control doctor payments in the future. More on this can be read at the end of the wikipedia "CCHIT" entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cchit.

CCHIT tried initially to take down this posting, but to no avail- we're too dogon determined! Of interest, they stopped posting their monthly minutes of their meetings after 8/2006. Those that disagree with CCHIT were using these as major sources of information why CCHIT is wrong. In their 8/2006 minutes they even posted that by 12/2006 CCHIT planned on having $1 million dollars of net income (i.e. "PROFIT"), which has to be distributed among its founding members. Not bad for a "nonprofit".

>>> Even so, six vendors that applied for certification in August withdrew their application, postponed testing, or failed to demonstrate compliance with all of the CCHIT criteria.

It's odd that round 1 had 22/22 passing, but now 6 have withdrawn. We're waiting to see how many apply for round 3, a listing due by mid-November.

I wonder if some of them read what we had published and withdrew until the controversies were resolved rather than throw away $28000, a good of which would go to their competitors? Our concerns about CCHIT is all over the 'net now. The flow of new members and guests has climbed exponentially at http://emrupdate.com due to this controversy and this website being at the center of it all. A listing of our initiatives can be found here: http://www.emrupdate.com/forums/thread/56268.aspx.

In summary, please keep an eye on the controversies surrounding CCHIT and report on them too- they are based on facts and are indisputable. Eventually CCHIT will die of its own weight and by lack of physician interest in high-priced EMRs. This is a situation worsened by CCHIT itself, but by making vendors and physicians alike aware of these facts the damage brought on by CCHIT will be lessened and we can move forward with a cheap/free verification process that will truly advance HIT in the United States.

Sincerely,
Al Borges, MD

Reply

gchiu replied on 11-12-2006 5:00 PM

rated by 0 users

Surely it is better to write to the editor than the author of the article in question?  Given you 5* anyway

Reply

alborg replied on 11-12-2006 9:09 PM

rated by 0 users

Actually, Mr. Terry is involved with all the CCHIT stuff (as per Mr. Lowes, the editor). Mr. Lowes likes to concentrate on hardware issues.

Cheers,

Al