No quiet end for '10, nor tranquil start for 2011
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| Mary Stevens, Editor Image source: TriMed Media Group |
CMS delivered a pair of promised announcements. First and probably of most interest to many in our audience, the official launch of registration for meaningful use incentive payments. The reporting year for eligible professionals began Jan. 1. Attestation will follow in April and the first checks could be cut in May. You can find a handy list of important meaningful use dates here.
Second, the ONC established its permanent program for health IT certification. This program, slated for publication in the Federal Register today, will supplant the temporary program at the heart of meaningful use with one that can be expanded to testing and certification of non-EHR health IT. The permanent program calls for creation of an ONC-Approved Accreditor (ONC-AA), to be approved through a competitive process to accredit certification bodies. The ONC-AA will be selected every three years. All ONC-ATCBs and other certification bodies will have to apply for ONC-Authorized Certification Body (ONC-ACB) status.
The ONC also this week announced Surescripts’ selection as the sixth ONC-ATCB, although to date, only two—CCHIT and Drummond Group—have made the Certified Health IT Product List. You can see some recent additions to the Certified Health IT Product List here, if you need more proof that 2011 is off to a lively start in Washington,D.C., and elsewhere.
Will all this EHR activity lead to better care? Not necessarily, according to a RAND study released at the end of last year. Use of EHRs by U.S. hospitals rose dramatically, but has had a limited effect on improving the quality of medical care, the online American Journal of Managed Care study stated. This study was trumpeted across the airwaves, blogosphere and outlets, and it makes a sobering case … at least for the state of hospital EHR use from 2003 to 2007.
Not all the news that rang in the New Year was EHR-related, however. There was some interesting merger and acquisition news as well. Hoping for a ‘cloudy’ future, Dell did some shopping in December, when it snapped up InSiteOne, then this week it announced its acquisition of SecureWorks, an Atlanta-based provider of information security services. Not to be outdone, Royal Philips Electronics has acquired most of medSage Technologies, a provider of patient interaction and management applications.
Finally, market researcher Kalorama had a New Year’s gift for mobile app watchers: The medical app category is slowly gaining market share, and when all the numbers are in, revenues are expected to more than double in 2010 over 2009, the market researcher announced.
Does this prediction match yours? What other health IT possibilities do you foresee in the coming year? Let me know at mstevens@cmio.net.
Mary Stevens
Editor of CMIO