Athenahealth resigns from EHR Association
Athenahealth has parted ways with EHR Association (EHRA), according to Dan Haley, vice president of government affairs at athenhealth, who confirmed the split in a blog post and noted that “athenahealth is neither an EHR company nor a software vendor.”
“At the end of the day, athenahealth left the EHRA because we never really belonged there in the first place," wrote Haley. "The EHRA was founded in 2004 by a group of EHR software vendors. Today, a decade into the age of cloud technology, the EHRA is still dominated and governed by a group of EHR software vendors."
He went on to say that athenahealth’s public policy priorities are “broader and more varied” than the traditional software vendors that run the EHRA, and it often is on the opposing side of crucially important debates. For example, while his company pushes for aggressive timelines and high standards with Meaningful Use, he said EHRA members urge "slower timelines, delayed deadlines and lower bars.” Also, athenahealth supports public disclosure of providers seeking hardship exemptions while EHR prefers to protect its members from such exposure, he said.
“In the days to come, we will work to identify other future-oriented health IT stakeholders to join with us in an effort to advance an innovation-friendly policy agenda in DC,” he wrote. “[W]e’re not seeking to create a competitor to the EHRA so much as a higher-performing alternative—just as cloud-based health IT is increasingly viewed as a higher-performing alternative to anachronistic, static software platforms. One might say we’re performing a ‘rip and replace’ on our own outdated trade association.”
Read the blog post here.