Lots of talk but little action

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee has not let up on its focus on improving EHRs and interoperability.

During a hearing this week, the committee heard testimony designed to help them “identify the five or six steps that we can take working with the administration to improve electronic health records—a technology that has great promise, but through bad policy and bad incentives has run off track,” said  Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), committee chairman.  He advocated for the industry to take on the challenges itself but said Congress might have to pass a law to make progress.

Alexander said EHRs can be brought “back on track” to become “a tool that hospitals and physicians can look forward to using to help their patients instead of something they dread.” He noted that doctors are “spending more time taking notes than taking care of patients, and they are spending a lot of their own money on systems that have to comply with government requirements.”

Among those providing testimony was Thomas Payne, MD, medical director of IT services at the University of Washington School of Medicine and chair-elect of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Board of Directors, who said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should delay Stage 3 “until it’s improved.” Christine Bechtel, president of Bechtel Health and chair of the Health IT Policy Committee’s Consumer Work Group, warned that delaying Stage 3 would prevent some patient engagement advances, including the requirement for “a greater percentage of doctors to share information electronically not just with patients but other doctors” as well as “lose a technical fix” in the form of application programming interfaces “that would help us to unlock the data that is currently siloed in patient portals.”

Neal Patterson, CEO of Cerner Corporation, called healthcare organizations’ blocking of the flow of information immoral. “Healthcare is too important not to change." He took some  responsibility for the lack of interoperability citing the competitive instinct that has led to technological silos. Vendors and providers alike “must enable sufficient transparency around data sharing to allow keeping a watchful eye on behaviors in our industry. Whether intentional or unintentional, behaviors that restrict patient choice, throw up roadblocks to true interoperability, or use control over data to further market share should be challenged. None of us have a perfect record, and we can all do better.”

There have been several HELP Committee hearings now so I hope they result in action that makes a difference.

Beth Walsh

Clinical Innovation + Technology editor