This appeared last week.
ONC's Washington has some health IT advice for Trump
by Gienna Shaw
Dec 14, 2016 4:23pm
ONC's B. Vindell Washington said government regulations around health IT is complex because the country is complex.
B. Vindell Washington has some advice for the incoming Trump administration when it comes to coordinating health information technology programs on a national level: It’s more complicated than it looks.
“One reason that healthcare and government regulations are complex is because we have a complex country,” Washington, head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, told Healthcare Dive.
“There are differences in the way that healthcare is delivered in Sioux falls or Tulsa or San Diego or where I live in Baton Rouge," he added.
Precision medicine, according to Washington, is the “next horizon” that the Trump administration should be looking toward as personalized care becomes increasingly important and more central to how healthcare is delivered in the country.
In fact, precision medicine just got a big funding boost from the 21st Century Cures Act, which Barack Obama signed into law this week—although it’s unclear how the program and its $6.3 billion in funding, which is spread out over seven years, will fare under President-elect Donald Trump.
The law also aims to support that complex web of health information technology goals, including promoting electronic health record interoperability, discouraging information-blocking and protecting data privacy and security.
More here:
Despite the differences between OZ and the US there are some useful insights here:
First complexity is very real and if you don’t fully appreciate the fact you will trip over badly.
Second despite what you might think geography does matter. There are big differences in clinical practice between different States as well as between the cities and the country. This has real implications as to the type and set-up of the supporting technology.
Third we really do need to get clarity regarding the applicable and non-applicable Standards for digital health to say nothing of the need to sort out where the Government and the Private Sector fit and how they work with each other.
It would also be nice to believe ADHA and ONC are really sharing perspectives and experience.
David.
One of the troubles with NEHTA was that it treated GPs as this homogeneous group, and failed to grasp the concept that GP practices are small businesses that all operate with different business models partially based on their location and catchment areas.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 21/12 10:17 - Very true. They also failed to treat them as SMEs. Rather NEHTA operated a "we know what is best for you" model of operation.
ReplyDeleteNEHTA may have been the public face but remember Madden and the Minister pulled the strings. It is the Department that remains the constraint, ADHA is just another whipping boy, one the department and big end of town consultants are happy to support, look at the CEO, he has made a life out of conning the public.
ReplyDeleteRe: 10.17 am, 1.15 pm, 5.14 pm .... The bureaucrats (hence the Government) have an entirely different agenda (and this includes the big end of town consultants, ADHA and the peak bodies) which is in absolute conflict with the SME's agenda.
ReplyDeleteThis is patently apparent after a careful read of the Dec 7, 2016 article by Danuta Mendelson, Deakin University Law School (Research) 'My [Electronic] Health Record' – Cui Bono (for Whose Benefit)?
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2881787
The bureaucrats will not change. They cannot change. They do not know how to change. This has been the case for two decades and will remain so.