Interview with Blumenthal: We are 'on track' for meaningful use goals

David Blumenthal, National Health IT Coordinator Image source: www.hhs.gov

The meaningful use program is “a very wise concept,” said David Blumenthal, MD, Chair of the Office of the National Coordinator. “Congress is incenting effective use of technology rather than just the acquisition of technology. [It’s] a pretty novel approach to promoting technology diffusion.”

In an Jan. 20 exclusive interview, Blumenthal said: “We’ve had a lot of terrific expert input into the meaningful use framework from the policy community and stakeholder community, which has made it a much more effective concept."

“The other key thing about the concept is, it’s evolution over time. ... If you’re going to spend a significant amount of taxpayer dollars on something that is going to benefit them, you should do it in a way that makes sure the benefits are realized, and that’s what meaningful use accomplishes.”

Are the timetables for meaningful use and EHR adoption reasonable? Yes, said Blumenthal. “In surveying hospitals and physicians, we know that 80 percent of hospitals are intending to become meaningful users and 40 percent of physicians have already decided to do that and another 40 percent are undecided.” (See related story, here).

That’s information from six months ago, very early in the process of the profession learning about meaning use,” he said. “Since that time, the proportion of physicians who are aware of the meaningful use concept has gone up substantially.

“We’re on track: we’ve already had 15,000 physicians and hospitals register for meaningful use payments and that’s in just the two weeks that it has been available. We’re getting 500 calls a day for information and this is just really early in the process, so  we’re on track.”

When asked about major goals for the coming year at ONC, Blumenthal cited efforts to increase interoperability across the healthcare system. "[You] have to get information into digital form before you can move it, but once you have it in digital form, then we have to make it possible to move it around the health system.”

The way the ONC plans to get there is through development of standards, initiatives, policies and procedures, governance of NHIN, better privacy and security policies, and “the whole suite of initiatives that are necessary to make interoperability work,” said Blumenthal.

“Right now we’re focusing on creating pathways to move information. We expect that they won’t be technology-bound—once you get standardized info that is consumable electronically, then the pathways we’re creating should be available to all kinds of information,” he said.

Images will be included in that pathway creation: “We can’t have an effective electronic health information system that can’t move images,” Blumenthal concluded.