Interoperability hearing leads to vendor spat

The Meaningful Use (MU) program “should have been a really good idea,” said Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during a hearing about the program and ongoing problems with interoperability.

Despite the billions spent on MU, the program has failed to "improve care, improve coordination and reduce costs," Alexander said.

Citing the start of Medicare reimbursement penalties for those providers who have not yet met MU requirements, he said he wants to “find out how this happened and what we can do about it.” He also referred to a study that found that almost 70 percent of physicians say their EHR system have not been worth the investment.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said he agreed with Alexander and also noted the exclusion of nursing homes and behavioral healthcare facilities from the MU program. "If you don't require nursing homes to cooperate, you've made a stupid tactical error in the rollout of health IT."

Robert Wergin, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, addressed the stringent MU requirements. Referring to his own practice, he said the adoption of an EHR system four years was “not pretty.” He said the transition was expensive, time-consuming and resulted in a decline of office productivity and loss of patient volume. After working hard to learn the system, he said productivity improved but patient volume never returned to pre-EHR levels.  

Wergin’s clinic is running more smoothly today and met Stage 2 requirements late last year.

Wergin recommended that the EHR incentive payment program overhaul its documentation requirements to be less time-consuming for physicians, remove penalties for noncompliance and strengthen EHR certification requirements.

Meanwhile, several stakeholders at the hearing criticized the lack of EHR interoperability, which they said has stifled technology's effect on healthcare.

Epic's Director of Interoperability Peter DeVault represented vendors during his testimony. He said his company has never had a customer fail to go live and has never lost a customer due to dissatisfaction to its software or services.  

When asked why Epic has not joined the CommonWell Health Alliance, DeVault said the group is expensive, requires the signing of a non-disclosure agreement which suggests that CommonWell intends to sell patient data downstream.

Follow-up to DeVault's testimony was fast and furious. Cerner issued a statement in response to DeVault's criticism of CommonWell: "Today's rhetoric is a slap in the face to many parties working to advance interoperability. It was discouraging to hear more potshots and false statements when it's clear there is real work to be done. We're committed to CommonWell as a practical, market-led way to achieve meaningful interoperability."

Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush later tweeted the following: Judy, Judy, Judy. Can't afford 1.4M? Puh-leese! @athenahealth will for you. Join @CommonWell and lets connect.