Healthcare IT is everywhere this month. Last week was National Healthcare IT week and the ONC announced that they had posted the final ruling on temporary certification goals and requirements in the field.

As most of you know, David Blumenthal is now our national healthcare IT “guru”. This week his organization announced they have a “plan” for permanent certification of EHR’s. The idea of certifying EHR’s originally (and before the government got involved in EHR’s) was to make sure providers were buying technology that actually did what it was supposed to in terms of documentation, connectivity, or providing “meaningful use” across the software functions.

On March 26, 2010, Accenture posted the results of a survey of 1,000 physicians country wide about their existing and future EHR use. Presently, only 6% of respondents indicated that they use a fully functional EHR.  Yet- over 26% stated that they used some component of an EHR system. 

Having recently attended the annual HIMSS trade show in Atlanta this past week, we were left with two very divergent feelings: overwhelmed and excitement. The show itself was well attended and huge. Everyday there was a constant feeling that there was no way to see everything you wanted to, hear all the presentations, and speak with key leaders about what is happening in healthcare IT on the “street level”.

With Healthcare reform dominating almost every media outlet over the past month, everyone is listening and learning more about moving our country toward improved healthcare technology use. ..