A HIT LIST for the HIT Generation: Meaningful Use for Patients
August 1st, 2009
EAST COAST. In and around the DC Beltway, there is a tremendous amount of excitement when it comes to Health Information Technology (HIT). Lots of mainstream IT vendors, trade associations and HIT gurus are licking their chops. Policy wonks, legislative aides and administration appointees have been diligently debating the thorny issues of the day: privacy, security, standards, and meaningful use.
WEST COAST. In and around Silicon Valley, there is a tremendous amount of excitement when it comes to Health Information Technology (HIT). Lots of software engineers, health 2.o entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists are licking their chops. IT experts, computer intelligensia, and bleeding edge developers have been diligently innovating the thorny issues of the day: privacy, security, standards, and meaningful use.
East meets West.
Policymakers and legislators are talking about the promise of increased efficiencies and cost savings. And meaningful use. HIT innovators are talking about the right to personal health data and personal health records. And meaningful use.
Lots of people are talking about meaningful use. Here’s what the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator’s website has to say about it:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act authorizes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide a reimbursement incentive for physician and hospital providers who are successful in becoming “meaningful users” of an electronic health record (EHR). These incentive payments begin in 2011 and gradually phase down. Starting in 2015, providers are expected to have adopted and be actively utilizing an EHR in compliance with the “meaningful use” definition or they will be subject to financial penalties under Medicare.
The focus on meaningful use is a recognition that better health care does not come solely from the adoption of technology itself, but through the exchange and use of health information to best inform clinical decisions at the point of care.
Informed clinical decision making must include the patient.
But who’s talking about meaningful use for today’s patients, the future HIT generation?
What we have here is a teachable moment: If we are really serious about meaningful use, it must be meaningful for the patient. Not just for health providers.
- How do we make sure the public (patient and caregivers) are well informed?
- What, if any, consumer protections may be necessary (ie, a misdiagnosis is inadvertently entered in an electronic health record–who, how does that correction get made–everywhere in cyberspace?)
- How do we insure that all people–the disabled, those who don’t speak English–will be able to meaningfully use HIT?
My suggestion: As we make the transition from paper to electronic records let’s have the National Coordinator, working with patient, consumer, and provider groups develop a HIT LIST–a plain English (with translations as needed) document explaining what electronic records are, why they are meaningful/useful to patients, along with a consumer check list of questions patients should ask. If I were putting this together, I would also include where to go for help (both online and offline).
Ideally, patients need to receive this HIT LIST before they are sick.
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